Before the Object. Material Histories, Infrastructures and Ecologies.

What happens before matter becomes art – what happens before the object? This workshop at Braunschweig University of Art on 21-23 November 2024, organized in co-operation with the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity”, is dedicated to exploring not artworks, but the "stuff" artworks are made of and the ecological implications of their procurement, processing and transport, aiming at uncovering what Laura Turner Igoe has called “the ecological unconscious of art matter”.

Questions about the production of artworks, material extraction and the associated infrastructures take center stage. This workshop aims to connect art and material culture scholars from different disciplines to discuss and exchange current research in the field, share and problematize the question of sources, and together think about methods for investigating the ecologies of art matter. By doing so, the workshop aims to expand the material-based traditions in art history to include pivotal ecological concerns.

If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please register with the organizers at ursula.stroebele[at]hbk-bs.de and kaja.ninnis[at]hu-berlin.de

PROGRAM

THURSDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2024

6.00 pm Keynote Lecture: Oil: Artistic Approaches to a Divisive Material
Monika Wagner (University of Hamburg)

FRIDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2024

9.00 am Welcome & Introduction
Ursula Ströbele, Kaja Ninnis

Panel I:

9.30 am Animals Products: Material Intermediaries in 1972
Andrew Patrizio (University of Edinburgh)

10.15 am I Am Not Ahead of the Game'. Phyllida Barlow and the Dilemmas of Making”
Ann-Sophie Lehmann (University of Groningen)

11.00 am Coffee Break

11.30 am Deep Down and Dirty: Getting Intimate with Peat
Manon Awst (Artist, Wales)

Respondence by Rahel Kesselring (HU Berlin / Matters of Activity)

12.45 pm Lunch Break

Panel II

2.15 pm Greed Can Move Mountains: The Iron Will of Modern Design Culture
Kjetil Fallan (University of Oslo)

3.00 pm Before and After Gold: Unearthing the Consequences of Extraction
Peter Oakley (Royal College of Art, London)

Respondence by Christian Berger (University of Arts Siegen)

4.15 pm Coffee Break

Panel III

4.30 pm A Material Girl – Eva Hesse’s Solo Exhibition “Chain Polymere” at the Fischbach Gallery in 1968
Annette Tietenberg (HBK Braunschweig)

5.15 pm Afterobjects. Scatological Aesthetics and Recycling Art
Yorick Josua Berta (University of Arts Linz)

Respondence by Hauke Ohls (University of Bonn)

SATURDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2024

9.00 am Open Meeting of the Art | Material | Ecology Working Group & Wrap-up

11.00 am Ancient Stones and old Buildings – a Geological Walk Through Braunschweig

1.30 pm End of Workshop

The workshop is based on previous online meetings of the research group "Art | Material | Ecology. Working Group on Material Flows and Ecologies in the Arts" (https://www.hbk-bs.de/hochschule/mitarbeiterinnen/dr-ursula-stroebele/arbeitskreis-art/), initiated by Kaja Ninnis (HU Berlin / Matters of Activity) and Ursula Ströbele (HBK Braunschweig) in 2023. The workshop is kindly supported by HBK Braunschweig and the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity”.