New Voices: Art and Conflict

Depictions of conflict have played a significant artistic and political role in various cultures throughout history.

Recent studies have focused on the part that art and artists play during armed conflict, revolutions, and reconciliation, demonstrating the potential art has to glorify, memorialise, critique or oppose conflict. In addition, conflict is present in ongoing discourse surrounding post-colonial theory and the role of cultural institutions in relation to looted art and artefacts.

New Voices 2018 will give postgraduate and doctoral researchers an opportunity to discuss the topic of art and conflict and to address persistent historical, contextual, and conceptual questions. How do artists represent conflict in their work? How can art be used as a weapon of resistance and a means of reconstruction? What is the artist’s obligation, if any, to conflict? How does art respond uniquely to different kinds of conflict?

Programme

9.00 - 9.15am Registration and morning coffee

9.15 - 9.20am Welcome

9.20 - 10.50am: Panel 1: Destruction and Display

‘The Architecture of Conflict: Examining the Parallels between ISIL’s Destruction of Palmyra and Alexander the Great’s Burning of Persepolis,’ Hardeep Dhindsa, University of Edinburgh

‘Hubert Robert’s Louvre in Ruins: art and conflict during the French Revolution,’ Lauren Dudley, Newcastle University

‘Exhibiting works in war time: modern Brazilian paintings,’ Ann Chow, National Archives/Birkbeck, University of London

10.50 - 11.10am Coffee Break

11.10am - 12.40pm: Panel 2: Visualization and Memorialization of Conflict

‘Violence and Voyeurism in the Tunisian Photographs of Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky,’ Emily Christensen, Courtauld Institute of Art

‘Framing Bodies and Battlefields: The Politics of Marc Garanger’s Return to Algeria in 2004,’ Katarzyna Falecka, UCL

‘Icons of War: John Keane, Gulf,’ Jayne Buchanan, Plymouth University

1 - 2.30pm Lunch and Visit to the Centre for Research Collections

2.50 - 4.20pm: Panel 3: Conflict in Cultural Institutions

‘Conflict in contemporary curatorial practice,’ Nikki Kane, University of Edinburgh

‘Quarrel at the Bauhaus: Johannes Itten vs Walter Gropius,’ Ines Rödl, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg

‘FIRE!! Magazine and the Visualisation of Cultural Conflict,’ Madeleine Harrison, Courtauld Institute of Art

4.30 - 5.30pm: Keynote Address

Dr. Emma Cunliffe, Newcastle University, ‘Life in ruins: Cultural heritage destruction and protection in conflict’

5.30 - 6.30pm Wine Reception, John Higgitt Gallery

New Voices is an annual event coordinated by the Association for Art History’s Doctoral and Early Career Research (DECR) Network Project Board. This year’s event is co-organised by Naomi Stewart and Karolina Koczynska.

The event is supported by Edinburgh College of Art’s History of Art Department and the Association for Art History.

Tickets are priced at £10 for members of the Association for Art History, £15 for non-members. Tickets can be booked at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-voices-art-conflict-tickets-50487058150