Everywhere and Nowhere : Migration and Contemporary Art
Migration has taken centre stage in critical practice in the visual arts. War, economic hardship, racism, ethnic and sectarian tensions have forced the mass migration of peoples, including artists, curators and critics who have also been mobilised by the affinities, opportunities, and resources, of a global art market. The rapid development of communications has led to an art discourse where the local is in continuous dialogue with the global. Our inherited vision that gives a subjective experience of art is framed by, and battles with, an international perspective. The attempt to build theoretical views on art and its relations to a globalized world can often fail to take into account the significance of place and the singular.
Travelling physically, or most often virtually, across borders is fraught with contradictions and difficulties, not least translation between languages and cultures. Universalism is a surface illusion. The deeper the context explored, the more singularities reappear, offering multiple points of view.
Has the impact of recent migration on contemporary art given a wider vision of the world, one where differences and singularities are not denied?
This Day 3 of the AICA Congress, hosted by the Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, the former Palais des Colonies, is an opportunity to discuss political questions on migration in the context of post colonial studies and critical art practice.
Proposals (max. 700 words) must be written in English, French or Spanish (+ short biography), and must be sent before the 26 June by email to aica.office@gmail.com, specifying « Congress call for papers » as subject. Speakers will be asked to send final papers (40 mins) in advance, for translation, before 16 October 2017.
AICA members only.
Day: Thursday 16 November 2017
Location: Palais de la Porte Dorée: Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration
Convenors: Mathilde Roman, Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton and Niilofur Farrukh