CFP: Laid Waste: Dead Matter, New Landscapes and the Politics of Trash

(MACAA 2012, Detroit 3-6 Oct 2012)

Mid-America College Art Association Conference, Detroit, Michigan, USA

October 3 - 06, 2012
Deadline: May 1, 2012

Panel Chair: Charlotte H. Wellman, Edinboro
University of PennsylvaniaContact: cwellmanedinboro.edu

Contemporary analysis of global warming and “green” conservation measures confront us with the environmental and political implications of the use and abuse of resources, matter and space. The generation of material waste and its impact on communities has taken many forms, including Lucy Walker’s documentary of Vic Muniz’s “trash” in Wasteland (2010), Agnes Varda’s film The Gleaners and I (2000) and Chris Jordan’s photographs of landfills of obsolete, discarded technology.

This session calls for scholars committed to investigating the ways in which the generation of organic and inorganic waste has engendered new perspectives on the individual, community, and geography. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. Literal and metaphorical intimations of generation and regeneration, obsolescence and decay also demand redefinitions of embodiment, the life cycle, and what it means to be human (or not). The phenomena of over-consumption and technological obsolescence and its opposite, the conservation and recycling of resources, also suggests the need for new models of self and community and their relationship to matter, space and place.

To submit a proposal please visit the conference website

http://art.wayne.edu/DETROIT2012/

or the paper submission page directly

http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/macaa2012/