[1] From: Ronit Milano
Subject: Reshowing as Counter-Censorship in Art

This call is for submission of presentations that if selected, will be included in a full panel proposal ‎for the CAA 2025 conference that will be held in New York in February 2025.‎

Reshowing as Counter-Censorship in Art
Chairs: Ronit Milano (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) and Nissim Gal (University of Haifa)‎

This panel will center on art that endeavors to reassert the actuality inherent in mechanisms that ‎seek to obscure it—a reality that emerges through the very mechanisms tasked with its ‎representation. The philosophical underpinning of the discourse on art herein gravitates towards ‎the ontological realm, all the while retaining a nuanced awareness of the sociological and political ‎dimensions inherent in the reality under scrutiny. The concept of Reshowing within our discussion ‎can be construed as a deliberate and conscious artistic or discursive endeavor to counteract the ‎politics of concealment, censorship, erasure, and analogous practices that seek to obscure, ‎suppress, or manipulate certain facets of reality. This conceptual framework is rooted in the ‎ontological assertion that reality, when subjected to veiling mechanisms, necessitates active ‎efforts to unveil, present, and reassert its visibility.‎‏ ‏In this sense, reshowing operates as an ‎epistemic and ethical intervention, challenging the hegemony of obscured narratives and ‎clandestine practices. The term encapsulates the philosophical commitment to revealing the ‎obscured, not merely as a reactive response to acts of suppression, but as a proactive engagement ‎with the structures that engender invisibility. Reshowing entails a persistent interrogation of the ‎hidden, the marginalized, or the intentionally obfuscated, and seeks to instantiate these aspects ‎within the public consciousness through artistic, discursive, or representational means. It thus ‎aligns with a broader philosophical imperative to cultivate transparency, foster critical awareness, ‎and counteract the subjugation of knowledge or narratives for political, social, or ideological ‎purposes.‎

Focusing on contemporary art, we invite proposals that invoke the concept of reshowing within a ‎variety of frameworks. Referring to this encompassing term, proposals may seek to scrutinize ‎diverse spheres, including territorial contentions, historiographical narratives, restrictions on ‎freedom of movement, manifestations within cultural and artistic expression, information control, ‎military maneuvers, and even the ostensibly mundane realm of statistical data. As a whole, we aim ‎that this panel will offer a basis for conceptualization of the term reshowing as a denominative ‎umbrella for an array of critical artistic and curatorial practices, which endeavors to unveil ‎countervisual actions poised to interrogate and potentially recalibrate the political optics that ‎delineate societies, thereby confronting and, perhaps, reconstructing the visible landscape.‎

Please send proposals of 250 words and a CV to milanorbgu.ac.il and ngaluniv.haifa.ac.il by ‎April 18, 2024.‎

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[2] From: Tijen Tunali
Subject: Artscapes of the Urbanocene

The Anthropocene discussions often take up that of the so-called “great acceleration” and underestimate the effective role of urbanization and the geographic, economic, social, cultural and political upheavals that accompany it. Urbanocene, which is widely discussed by scholars Geoffrey West, Massimo Palme and Agnese Salvati, takes the attention from an abstract humanity of the Anthropocene and places it on urbanization. This session discusses the radical strategies employed by artists in navigating the Urbanocene by metamorphosing public spaces into vibrant arenas of introspection, advocacy, and resilience. Through a multifaceted examination of artistic praxes encompassing installations, murals, installations and interventions, this session scrutinizes the manifold modalities through urban vistas as conduits for discourse on ecological imperatives, heralding advocacies for radical ecology, preservation of biodiversity, and the pursuit of climate justice. Can the catalytic potential of these artistic endeavors nurture a consciousness of symbiosis with non-humans and the environment, galvanize communal involvement andengender collective mobilization? This session provides a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and exploration of the transformative power of art within the context of the Urbanocene.

We search for papers that explore:
Urbanocene paradigm and its implications for the urban artscapes
The potential of public art to galvanize collective action toward sustainability and ecological justice
Case studies of transformative artistic Interventions in the urban space inspired by new materialism and posthumanism
Artistic strategies for mobilizing urban communities and cultivating Ecological Consciousness

Please send proposals of 250 words and a short CV to Tijen Tunali, tt2928columbia.edu by April 11, 2024.