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Panels: Aesthetics, Politics & Histories: The Social Context of Art, RMIT, Dec 2018

Panel Proposals for Aesthetics, Politics & Histories: The Social Context of Art
The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference 2018 (AAANZ)

School of Art, RMIT University, Melbourne, December 5 – 08, 2018
Deadline: Jun 25, 2018

Convenors: Professor Daniel Palmer and Dr Marnie Badham, Vice Chancellors post Doc Research Fellow at RMIT University

The conference will open critical dialogue on the histories of art by examining the social contexts of aesthetics and politics. Bringing together art historians, theorists, curators, critics, and artists from across the region, we will offer a four-day program of panels and papers, publication prizes, masterclasses and a parallel artistic program to be announced soon!

The conference features distinguished keynote speakers who will present expanded and alternative frameworks for understanding the diverse contexts and histories of art. Gabi Ngcobo (South Africa), curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale; Genevieve Grieves (AUS), Head of the First Peoples Department at Museums Victoria; and Ema Tavola (Fiji), independent curator are each engaged in critical curatorial practices aimed at democratising and decolonising art institutions and opening up art collections to alternative perspectives and narratives traditionally overlooked by museums and galleries. Art historian Professor Griselda Pollock (UK) from Leeds University is renowned for her postcolonial, queer feminist analysis of the visual arts, visual culture and cultural theory and research of trauma and the aesthetic in contemporary art.

The intersection of art and society is where differing worldviews and opposing epistemologies can meet and clash. Art offers a site for modelling political alternatives, questioning dominant discourses, and producing new historical narratives. Responding to the political, economic and environmental tensions of the present moment, the conference explores the relationship of the arts to social life throughout history. Located in a region marked by multiple and overlapping colonial and postcolonial histories and contemporary processes of globalisation, the conference aims to initiate critical dialogues that foreground the complex contexts, diverse practices, multiple histories, and contested trajectories of art.

Call for Panel Sessions
The Conference Committee invites proposals for panel sessions that respond to the conference theme Aesthetics, Politics and Histories: The Social Context of Art with an extended deadline of Monday 25 June 2018.

Proposals may consider the following subjects:
– Social histories of art across time and in diverse local and regional contexts and in their intersection with questions of gender, sexuality and race;
– Transformations in art production from the early modern period to today which extend the social, experimental, interdisciplinary and conceptual natures of art;
– The public sphere as a contested and diminishing site of dissent, artistic intervention and social participation;
– New critical approaches to exploring art historical representations of community, country and heritage;
– Changing social economies and labour practices which have unsettled the art market historically and have changed the way artists work and live today;
– Individual artistic responses, creative resistance and collaborative contributions to political moments of local, regional and global political significance over the centuries and today;
– Theorisation of historical movements and contemporary forms of public, socially engaged and participatory art;
– Historical and contemporary examples of democracy and pluralism in cultural production;
– Decentred modes of authorship that shift the focus on the individual artist, curator and writer towards new collective and collaborative approaches.

Session Format
90 minute panel sessions can host three 20 minute papers with 10 minutes of discussion. This needs to include introductions and speaker transitions.
Alternative formats may be proposed such as roundtables, workshops, performance lectures, or open discussions, if they can be organised within the timetable structure of 90 minute sessions.
Panel convenors are responsible for the section of papers and are encouraged to include scholars and artist across all stages of career. Postgraduate students are also encouraged to propose sessions.

Submission Process
Submit panel proposals via the google form here: https://goo.gl/forms/TijiQiVZY4M7u1fB3. Please include: name and email address of the session convenor(s); institutional affiliation; session title; a brief abstract (250 word limit) that describes the session and how it fits with the conference theme.
The deadline for session proposals is COB Monday 25 June 2018.
Session convenors are required to be active members of AAANZ at the time of the conference and will be asked to renew or register for membership upon acceptance of their panel proposal.
Session convenors will be notified of the acceptance of their proposed session on or before Monday 16 July 2018.
Call for papers for accepted panel sessions will open on Monday 23 July 2018.

Session convenors are expected to administer all enquiries and correspondence relating to their session in consultation with the Conference Committee. Call for papers closes Friday 31 August.

Contact
Please address all correspondence to the conference producer, Amy Spiers, conf@aaanz.info.