Collage has long been a form for exploration of self, society, and a way of critically thinking through the materiality of the world around us. As a form that relies on hybridity and encourages experimentalism, as well as its tendency towards disrupting normative formalisms, closely aligns it with queerness and is an apt form to think through notions of identity and selfhood, which are central to this symposium.

In their 2011 book, The Queer Art of Failure, Jack Halberstam explores the notion of collage in relation to queer theory. They write that collage precisely references the spaces in between and refuses to respect the boundaries that usually delineate self from other, art object from museum, and the copy from the original. In this respect, as well as in many others, collage (from the French coller, to paste or glue) seems feminist and queer.

The liminality afforded by collage, through hybridity and the exposure of process, incisions and overlays, allows both the creator and the viewer to find their space without boundaries and to define said space without adhering to normative ideas, should they so wish. The effect of ‘queering’ collage, that is reading in collage a queer aesthetic, without the visibility of a strictly queer subject matter, is key to the themes the organisers hope to examine during the symposium. As David Getsy has written, when ‘queer’ is used as transitive verb (to queer), it allows for strategies for the ‘undercutting of the stability of identity and of the dispensation of power that shadows the assignment of categories and taxonomies’.

As such, the Collage Research Network invites papers of 20-25 mins in length for an online symposium, covering collage across mediums, disciplines and time periods. The call is open to scholars at any stage of their career.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:

- Collage and identity politics
- Collage as a queer practice
- Collage and the intersections of queerness and race/’quaring’collage
- Collage and the body/body politics
- Collage and queer affect
- Collage and political rage
- Collage as queer-feminist protest
- Collage as protest
- Collage and destruction/(re)creation/reinvention

Proposals of no more than 500 words and a biography of no more than 150 words should be sent in Word (.docx) format to collageresearchnetworkgmail.com by October 1, 2020. NB: Please do not send images in your proposal or as attachments to the email.

Please include in the document name your name, a short paper title and ‘CRN Proposal’ (e.g. Collins_Queering Collage_CRN Proposal). As this event is online, it will also be a free event. If you have any questions, please contact the organisers at the above email address.