Call for Papers, AAG 2016:
Art, Activism and the City: Global Perspectives
Session Organizers: Jason Luger, King’s College London and National University of Singapore; Julie Ren, City University of Hong Kong and Humboldt University Berlin; and Nathan Bullock, Duke University
In Hong Kong, the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement inspired art installations and performative works throughout the city; in Thailand, ‘red shirts’ take on a political meaning; meanwhile, a ‘woman in red’ in Taksim Square became a poignant symbol of the demonstrations in Istanbul. Global activist movements are different, yet often united by iconography based on colours, motifs, and artistic symbols: sometimes artists and the arts play a deliberate and central role; other times, a more peripheral one.
Scholars are exploring the geographies of artistic forms of activism in the city with renewed vigour, responding to social, cultural and political movements around the world. ‘Creative resistance’ (Colomb and Novy, 2012), ‘artivism’ (Krischer, 2012) and ‘cultural activism’’ (Buser, et al., 2013) are sometimes used interchangeably to describe the ways that art, activism and urban space intersect.
However, the diverse terrains and contexts of art, activism and the city require more explorations from around the world in order to encapsulate a wider breadth of experiences. Through investigations of the complexities, hybridities and contradictions in the ways that art, society, activism and urban space are produced, encountered and formed, this session seeks to address crucial questions such as,
How do artists situate themselves within broader activist movements - as either deliberate participants or non-participants in activist causes?
In what ways must “critical art” be expanded to include new and varying forms of architecture, performance and new media/mediums to reflect the changing politics of representation and identity in urban space?
What are the main themes and issues emerging around the world that unite (or divide) art-led activism? In what ways are issues such as human rights, civil liberties, environmental justice or economic inequality portrayed across different contexts? How does this affect understandings about criticality in artistic practice?
What does artistic activism ‘look’ like, in terms of how it is performed and enacted materially and digitally, across space and place? What new and hybrid forms are emerging that challenge existing theories on trajectories of contemporary art or the role of art in the city?
How does the state, as an unstable and highly fluid category, interact with artistic activism, and in what ways is such activism both complicit and subversive within / against state aims and agendas? How do these forms of artistic activism respond to varying degrees of authoritarianism or democratization? E.g., how does critical art - and its relation to the authoritarian state - differ from Singapore to Turkey; from Russia to Egypt?
How can comparative approaches inform our understanding about patterns and trajectories across presumed categories and geographies of “global north” and “global south,” across scale and history?
We invite papers that focus on the above, or related questions, and researchers dealing with a broad spectrum of themes and topics relating to activism, art, urban space, and governance. Particularly welcome are papers based on empirical material from understudied sites (atypical cases, small cities, authoritarian cities, etc.) as well as papers with novel analytical or methodological approaches.
We also welcome papers, perspectives and provocations from working artists and activists, to add depth and texture to theoretical questions and define art broadly to include architecture and performance.
Submission Process: Please send an abstract of 250-300 words to: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] by Friday, October 16th with the subject line “AAG 2016 Art Activism.” We will let accepted participants know by Tuesday, October 20th, in advance of the AAG Registration Deadline of October 29th (Thursday).