[spectre] Open Call Symposium Frontiers of Solitude

[Milos Vojtechovsky]

Open Call for Participants

The international symposium Frontiers of Solitude, organized as part  
of the eponymous art project, will offer a comparison of the opinions,  
experiences, and points of view of artists, curators, and invited  
guests on the theme of transitions in the landscape in which we  
currrently live.

The symposium will search for relationships between the cultural,  
political, and economic aspects of contemporary concepts and our  
understandings of what is meant by such words as countryside,  
landscape, and land, including the topography of transitional zones,  
with an eye on both establishing and crossing over boundaries and  
limitations.

The term landscape can be understood to reflect our relationship with  
the land. It is everywhere around us, under our feet; it is our shared  
starting point; it is that which at once unites and separates us. With  
this in mind, we can begin to raise questions about what is happening  
to the land. How are we connected to it, how do we relate to it, what  
separates us from it? How and to what extent can we understand the  
land, and what do we all know and not know about it? To whom does it  
belong, and how do we change it, for better or worse?

The artist, architect, businessman, scientist, farmer, and specialist  
each see the land in their own terms. How can we express and capture  
in human, rather than statistical, terms, both the visible and  
invisible transformations that the land undergoes, both locally and  
globally, with regard to the entire biosphere and climate?

Industrialization brings about mobility of people and goods, hyper- 
connectivity, overproduction and urbanization, which have transformed  
a large part of the 21st-century landscape into an industrial  
concourse, test laboratory, and a field of conflict among people, and  
between people and other living creatures. From this, there comes  
about a blurring of existing, seemingly well-defined borders, zones  
both separate and interconnected, with regions of safety and danger,  
rich and poor, managed and wild.

Have we already entered an ideosphere of beyond imaginary boundaries?  
Does contemporary art make it possible to orient ourselves within this  
unstable and ever-changing territory? Do these art projects and  
festivals on the theme of the Anthropocene offer fresh approaches, or  
rather exploit the fascination and anxiety that is elicited by  
superficial and ultimately temporary phenomena?

We encourage artists, scientists, cultural researchers,  
environmentalists, and other lateral thinkers to submit proposals for  
the symposium.

We welcome proposals until 30 November 2015.

Proposals should comprise: an abstract (250 words) and a bio/resume  
(200 words).

Please direct proposals to: info at frontiers-of-solitude.org.

This project focuses on current transformations of the landscape and  
the close connections between our post-industrial civilization and  
nature. These themes are elaborated in terms of the cultural geography  
and morphology of three specific areas of central and northern Europe.  
The project includes residencies and workshops in selected areas of  
the Czech Republic, Iceland and Norway. The project is a joint  
initiative of the Školská 28 Gallery (Deai/setkání), the Atelier Nord,  
and the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, and is supported by grant  
from Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants.

http://frontiers-of-solitude.org/