We are now calling for papers for an upcoming colloquium taking place on Thursday 28th May 2026. Please share and reach out with any questions.

Visual art, through painting, sculpture, photography and other media, has long served as a powerful tool for representing and reimagining lineage and connection. These works can embody intimacy, inheritance, loss, and continuity in ways that resist formal categorisation. Art can fill in the silences left by documentation. It allows us to see what a birth certificate cannot: the emotional textures of a relationship; the complexities of chosen family; and the legacies passed through gesture, tradition, and story rather than DNA. By engaging with these visual representations, we expand our understanding of lineage not as a fixed biological chain, but as a living, evolving network of connection and meaning.

We are welcoming proposals for 20-minute papers from researchers, museum professionals, independent scholars, artist-practitioners, and postgraduate students.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with a short biography (maximum 150 words), should be sent to maryanne.saundersnationalgallery.org.uk by Monday 26 January 2026.