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[1] Walking on Images

From: Michael Tymkiw <mtymkiwessex.ac.uk>
Date: June 26, 2019

For millennia, floors have served as an important site for displaying imagery, as evidenced by mosaic pavements, tomb slabs, rugs, and, more recently, floor-based works of fine art. In many cases, human beings have been encouraged to walk on such imagery – a mode of viewing that not only results in direct physical contact with images but also means that a spectator cannot view ground-based images without simultaneously seeing parts of his or her own body. In this respect, a spectator’s body at once completes and interrupts the imagery being viewed.

This proposed session seeks to explore a range of issues broadly related to the theme of walking on images. Some possible topics for consideration include:
- the motivations for making and/or commissioning particular examples of ‘walkable’ imagery;
- the conservation and restoration of floor-based imagery that has been effaced through walking;
- theoretical or transdisciplinary discussions of the figure-ground relationship during the act of walking on images;
- the dialogue between figuration and abstraction in floor-based decorative arts;
- the extent to which the act of walking on imagery problematises the very notion of the image, which is closely associated with resemblance and similitude.

To submit a paper proposal, please fill out the proposal form, which can be found on the website above. You will need to provide a title and abstract (250 words max), your name, and institutional affiliation (if any). Proposals should be sent to mtymkiwessex.ac.uk.

Deadline for submissions: Monday 21 October 2019

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[2] Art History, Theory and Practice for an Ecological Emergency

From: Dr Lucy Whelan <lucy.whelanhu-berlin.de>
Date: June 26, 2019

Session Convenors: Andrew Patrizio (Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh) a.patrizioed.ac.uk, and Lucy Whelan (Humboldt University of Berlin) lucy.whelanhu-berlin.de

How can we align art theory, history, and practice with an ontology that refuses to see human life as fundamentally set apart from nature? Art historians have recently started to respond to global environmental concerns with eco-critical approaches. Yet with the effects of abrupt climate breakdown already apparent, art history can afford neither to repeat the theoretical debates over the representation of nature explored in literary studies since the 1990s, nor to conceive the ecological as a transitory ‘turn’ or an additional category of analysis. Instead, a global existential crisis demands a wholescale rethinking of how art historians and practitioners write, curate, make, and teach. This interdisciplinary session builds on recent work by TJ Demos, Anna Tsing, Kathryn Yusoff and others, in moving towards an integrated ecological art history that is oriented towards the future, even as it examines the past. Key questions to explore may include:

-Faced with the reality of environmental breakdown, how can different approaches to realism attend to the more-than-human reality always constraining and exceeding human constructions?
-Taking a global, holistic approach, what new insights may be revealed by situating historical categories such as gender, race, or class in relation to the environment?
-In turning our attention to ‘deep’ or geological time, or conversely to the critically shallow time left to reduce emissions, how might we change our approach to art’s temporality?
-While some major museums have recently divested from fossil fuels, how can the art institution go further in resisting norms that are damaging the planet?

This session will comprise six, 25-minute papers, presented over a single day, as part of the Association for Art History’s 46th Annual Conference, co-hosted by Newcastle University and Northumbria University, 1-3 April 2020. In addition to three days of academic sessions and research papers in the vibrant city of Newcastle, the 2020 Annual Conference will include a mix of events including artists’ film screenings, performances, roundtable discussions, and site visits.

To submit a paper proposal for this session, please use the Proposal Form available on the Association for Art History website, and email it directly to the session convenors, a.patrizioed.ac.uk and lucy.whelanhu-berlin.de by the deadline of Monday 21 October 2019.

Proposals should be 250 words maximum, plus a title, for a 25-minute paper.

Please make sure your title is concise and reflects the contents of the paper, as the title is what appears online, in social media and in the printed programme.

You will receive an acknowledgement receipt of your submission within two weeks from the session convenors.