SocialEast
Forum on the Art and Visual Culture of Eastern Europe

SEMINAR SERIES - CALL FOR PAPERS

Proposals for papers are invited from art historians, curators and
artists that examine the art and visual culture of Eastern Europe during
the socialist period. The SocialEast seminars are organised by MIRIAD
Manchester Metropolitan University and will be held at various venues
during 2006-7.

Papers should address one of the four thematic areas covered in the
seminar series: Art an Ideology, Art and Documentary, Art and
Revolution, or Art and Memory. Further details of the seminars are given
below and on the SocialEast Forum website www.socialeast.org

Please send a 200 word proposal and biographical note to Dr. Reuben
Fowkes r.fowkesmmu.ac.uk by
Monday 31 July 2006.

With best regards,

Reuben Fowkes

SocialEast Seminar Series 2006-7

A series of international seminars will be held during 2006-7 to address
issues of Art and Ideology, Art and Documentary, Art and Revolution, and
Art and Memory in the context of EastEuropean art and visual culture.
The seminars will be accompanied by contemporary art events, including
exhibitions, artists' presentations and film screenings.

No.1 Art and Ideology
Manchester Metropolitan University, Friday 6 October 2006

The focus of the first seminar will be the relationship between art and
ideology in the context of the recent history of East European art.
Specific issues that will be addressed include: the writing and
rewriting of East European art history; the role of exhibition strategy,
museology and curating in the reconstruction and reappraisal of the
history of art in East Central Europe; contemporary artists' projects
dealing with the legacy of the art of the socialist period from
conceptualism to socialist realism; and theorising the contradictions
between national, regional and international accounts of East European
art, both historical and contemporary.

No.2 Art and Documentary

Open Society Archives / Central European University Budapest, 10
November 2006

The second seminar will coincide with the celebration of the 50th
anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in Budapest, and will include
coverage of issues such as: the role of contemporary art in
commemorating historical events from the socialist period, both
revolutions and counter-revolutions; the history and treatment of public
monuments in Eastern Europe; relics of socialism in contemporary visual
culture, and the use of photographic and film archives of the socialism
in visual research.

No.3 Art and Revolution

Venue and date to be confirmed

The third seminar takes as its primary focus the legacy of political,
social and cultural revolutions for art and visual culture in Eastern
Europe. This would include discussion of the role of the historical
avant-garde, the specific trajectory of Conceptual Art in Central
Europe, and the reevaluation of Socialist Realism as an art historical
problem in the context of modernism, post-modernism and the polarised
aesthetics of the Cold War.

No.4 Art and Memory

Venue and date to be confirmed

The fourth seminar focuses on the role of artists in excavating memories
of the socialist period. It considers the role of artists, curators and
researchers in analysing and processing public memories and
consciousness, as well as the role of visual representations in our
understanding and recoding of Eastern Europe's socialist past. The
widespread concern with the endangered memories of socialism takes place
against the backdrop of rapid social and cultural change on the path to
trans-national integration, and the seminar will also deal with the
search for alternative models in art and society.

Dr Reuben Fowkes
Research Fellow MIRIAD
(Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design)