The first international conference under the research project Identity Crisis Network invites scholars, curators, artists, and other individuals and collectives to join in a conversation that seeks to challenge established notions of identity and subjectivity in contemporary art and culture.

Organizers: Identity Crisis Network (Luka Cvetković, Klara Petrović, Michalina Sablik, Luja Šimunović and Vera Zalutskaya)

Location: Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia
Dates: 23th & 24th of May 2025

In the past few decades, the concept of identity has been marked as a fixed political determination. Given the term’s inherent fluidity, diversity, multiplicity, and ambiguity, attempts to narrowly define it have proven restrictive, stretching its boundaries and, ultimately, causing them to burst. Practices aimed at making marginalized groups visible in the art world have often led to compartmentalization or tokenization, deepening polarization and provoking culture wars within, as well as outside, art institutions. This position opens a space for questioning the very foundations of contemporary art practices and their potential to generate transformative experiences beyond normative and constraining limits. The Identity Crisis Network Conference seeks to explore whether it is possible to move beyond established categories of identity and simplified labels, both in cultural and political discourse. We aim to engage with these issues not through a one-sided critique but by examining the potential to generate change within the realm of art. Through this conference, we reflect on the philosophical, institutional, aesthetic, and political landscape we inhabit as artists, curators, and theorists – intending to envision new spaces where potential and contingent outcomes can emerge.

We welcome submissions engaging with questions related, but not limited, to:

How might we define identity? How can it be understood from various artistic, philosophical, or political perspectives?

What is identity politics today? How does it affect art institutions, and how can we build new institutions that are democratic and diverse?

How can we identify power dynamics within the art field, and what dominant discourses shape its relationships? How might these frameworks be transgressed, expanded, or dissolved?

In what ways can art engage with these issues? What is the future of politically and socially engaged art?

How can we move beyond biased categories when naming certain groups and identities in the art field, to avoid tokenization?

How might art, fiction, and speculation help us imagine new modes of being? How do the internet and emerging technologies play into these questions?

Keynote speakers: Jack Halberstam (Columbia University), Anna Longo (Paris 1–Panthéon-Sorbonne), Svitlana Matviyenko (Simon Fraser University), Simon O'Sullivan (Goldsmiths, University of London)

In order to apply, please fill out the Google form (https://forms.gle/p2H4fEfmFSGxeC2R8) by the 28th of February 2025. Along with research papers and presentation proposals alternative modes of participating in the conference are welcome – such as video essays, performative talks, and other formats up to 30 minutes.

Per proposal we provide:
A fee of 250,00 EUR (gross);
Accommodation in Zagreb;
Participation in the travel costs;

You will receive information about the acceptance of your proposal for the conference by 14th of March 2025.

If you have any questions contact us at helloidentitycrisisnetwork.com

This project is realized with the support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the international cultural program of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2025.