Dear Colleague,
On behalf of the Conference Organising Committee, we would like to inform you of the:
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE ARTS IN SOCIETY
28-31 July 2009
Venice, Italy
The International Conference on the Arts in Society and the International Journal of the Arts in Society provide an intellectual platform for the arts and art practices, and enable an interdisciplinary conversation on the role of the arts in society. They are intended as a place for critical engagement, examination and experimentation of ideas that connect the arts to their contexts in the world – in studios and classrooms, in galleries and museums, on stage, on the streets and in communities.
The 2009 Arts Conference will coincide with the Venice Biennale, and will be held in conjunction with featured exhibitions and programs. The occasion of the Venice Biennale provides an opportunity for the Conference to serve as a node in the larger phenomenon of fairs, festivals, and their networks. As such, the Arts Conference aims to discover what values, instincts and common ground may exist within the arts and their practices and sites of reception around the world. Your participation shapes the Conference itself.
The theme of this year’s Conference is Art and Transnationalism. It focuses dialogue on the arts and art practices that may be situated within the context of international art expositions, festivals and biennials which are engaged with the transnational production of art and its global distribution networks. The scope is deliberately broad and ambitious. Our times demand nothing less than interdisciplinary and holistic approaches. The breadth of the Conference and the Journal, however, are without prejudice to finely grained discussion of specific, local and grounded practices.
Plenary speakers include:
* Judy Chicago, Artist, Author, Educator. Founder, first feminist art program in the USA (1971), and co-founder of CalArts Feminist Art Program. Her groundbreaking work, “The Dinner Party,” is now part of the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Musem and its new Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
* Dr. Tomasz Wendlund, Artist; Director, MEDIATIONS Biennale, Poland; Lecturer, Sommer Akademie in Rheinau, Switzerland.
* Barbara Fischer, Faculty, Curatorial Studies, University of Toronto, Canada; Curator for Mark Lewis at the Canada Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009.
* Aaron Levy, Founding Director of Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, USA; Curator, “Into the Open: Positioning Practice,” for the
US Pavilion of the Venice Bienale’s 11th Architecture Exhibition, 2009.
* Dr. Nancy Mithlo, Faculty, Art History and American Indian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Curator/Co-Founder of numerous Native American exhibitions and projects to create a presence at the Venice Bienale, from 1999-2009; Co-Curator of “Requickening” Project with the University of Venice.
Please continue to visit the Conference website as additional plenary speakers are added to the Conference program.
In addition, the Arts Conference will also include numerous individual paper, workshop and colloquium presentations by artists/practitioners, teachers and researchers. We invite you to respond to the Conference Call for Papers. Presenters may choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed International Journal of the Arts in Society. If you are unable to attend the Conference in person, virtual registration options are also available which allow you to submit a paper for possible publication in the Journal.
Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this Conference, we also encourage you to present on the Conference YouTube Channel. Please select the Online Sessions link on the Conference website for further details.
The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 12 March 2009. Future deadlines will be announced on the Conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the Conference, including an online proposal submission form, are to be found at the Conference website – http://www.Arts-Conference.com/.
We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope that you will be able to join us in Venice in July 2009.
Yours sincerely,
Tressa Berman, Ph.D.
For the Advisory Board, International Conference on the Arts in Society and International Journal of the Arts in Society