Dear Friends and Colleagues

We are delighted to remind you of our conference to take place between 10-12th May 2018 focusing on the importance of practice research in generating knowledge. The conference will take place at our Luton campus, which as you know is 22 short minutes from London. We invite filmmakers, writers, scholars, practitioner scholars as well as theorists and performers to have a couple of days of remembering why creativity matters even in today’s grim climate. https://www.facebook.com/Creative-Practice-Research-in-the-Age-of-NeoLiberal-Hopelessness-conference-472743596453012/

Our keynote speakers are Professor Catherine Grant, Birkbeck, University of London, who has moved from the traditional scholarship to video essay making, and Professor Thomas Elsaesser, Columbia University, who after a life time of acclaimed books and papers, has turned his hand to making of a personal documentary featuring his family’s archive.  With the help of our keynote speakers, we will be considering the following:

• Why did they decide to include practice in their work? 
• What have they learnt that they can share? 
• Can a practitioner generate theories and how? 
• What is the relationship between traditional knowledge and artistic research and professional practice? 
• To what extent can creative practice research tap into areas of experience unavailable to traditional patriarchal scholarship? 
• Do first person narratives unveil profound knowledge even though they are deeply subjective?

We want to celebrate the importance of individual reflection vis-à-vis the work one creates, echoing the feminist poet Adrienne Rich’s thought on the personal and creative work:

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
(From Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972)

In film, can practice research move beyond a narrow discussion of the filmmaking practices into discussion on philosophy, ethics and gender? What do we learn through creative practice research that we cannot get at through ordinary routes? What is the relationship between ‘high’ theory and practice then? We will be hoping to tackle these and other questions in a number of 'nomadic' ways (paraphrasing Braidotti).

Additional information about the conference

Theorists and practitioners from all fields and disciplines are welcome. We invite individual papers of about 20 minutes, pre-constituted panels of 3 members plus a respondent as well as workshops and other forms of screenings and performance.
The conference fee is £140 to include coffee breaks, lunches and a wine reception. PhD students register at £75 with the proof of their status. Please email me at [log in to unmask] or contact my PhD student Priyanka Verma on [log in to unmask] before 20th March 2018.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Happy New Year!

 

Dr. Agnieszka Piotrowska

Reader in Film Practice and Theory

Course Leader MA/MSc Digital Film

University of Bedfordshire

 

Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy

Finalist Times Higher Awards Arts Excellence and Innovation 2017

https://agnieszka-piotrowska.com/

https://www.escapethemovie.net/

http://marecherathemovie.com

BAFTSS Board Member

http://www.baftss.org,

 

 

 

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