[spectre] CFP: Symposium: Revising art stories in search of potential changes (Lisbon, 6-7 Dec 23)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Basia Sliwinska
Date: Feb 8, 2023
Subject: CFP: Revising art stories in search of potential 
changes   (Lisbon, 6-7 Dec 23)

Lisbon, Dec 6–7, 2023
Deadline: Mar 31, 2023

The lost-and-found: revising art stories in search of potential changes.

International Symposium.

This is a call for contributions for an International Symposium 
envisaged as a series of three events in three locations: Lisbon, 
Warsaw, Riga.

The first event will take place at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 
Lisbon, Portugal, December 6-7, 2023. The following events (call for 
contributions will be published over the course of 2023) will take place 
in Warsaw, March 2024, and in Riga June 2024.

It is envisaged that selected contributions from the symposium will be 
developed into either an edited book or a special issue of a 
peer-reviewed journal.

HERE WE INVITE TO SUBMIT PROPOSALS FOR THE FIRST EVENT IN LISBON.

THEME

I lost a few goddesses while moving south to north, 
and also some gods while moving east to west. 
I let several stars go out for good, they can't be traced. 
An island or two sank on me, they're lost at sea. 
I'm not even sure exactly where I left my claws, 
who's got my fur coat, who's living in my shell. 
My siblings died the day I left for dry land 
and only one small bone recalls that anniversary in me. 
I've shed my skin, squandered vertebrae and legs, 
taken leave of my senses time and again. 
I've long since closed my third eye to all that, 
washed my fins of it and shrugged my branches. 

Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me 
how little now remains, one first person sing, temporarily 
declined in human form, just now making such a fuss 
about a blue umbrella left yesterday on a bus.    

Wisława Szymborska A Speech at the Lost-And-Found (1972)

(from Wisława Szymborska Poems New and Collected (1998) trans. Stanisław 
Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh, Harcourt Brace International)

Losing things, or realising their lack, usually causes a feeling of deep 
disorientation, distress, helplessness or anger. These feelings are felt 
across the loss of objects, identities, ideas, sense, language, bonds, 
and power. Similar emotions are revealed through the verses of A Speech 
at the Lost-And-Found (1972) by 1996 Literature Nobel Lauriat, Wisława 
Szymborska. The Polish poet grieves for the loss of community with/in 
the world. When disrupted and confused worldly relationships accompany 
(mis)understandings of works of art as treasures, carefully evaluated 
and classified by experts but isolated from everyday life. Perhaps this 
moment of loss and confusion offers us a chance to uncover a new 
art-storical paradigm that focuses on building intra-relational 
ecologies founded on care, attentiveness and respect. We are hopeful 
that losing that to which we have become accustomed may allow us attend 
to abandoned possibilities and missed chances, and enable us to unlearn 
hierarchical and violent ways of building knowledge, including art as a 
vehicle of sustaining power structures.  In this symposium, we propose 
to critically engage with the noticeable shift in understanding the 
paradigm of art. This departs from ‘interpreting’ and ‘decoding’, 
towards a physical, affective and material experiencing within diverse 
contexts and communities.   Objects approached from a new contemporary 
perspective may be revealed as lost, but at the same time, also 
(re)found, allowing for the negotiation potentials of their uses, 
understandings and performativity. Attending to relations and things 
that were once discarded as unworthy enables us to unlearn, and 
re-define existing concepts of identity relationships (gender, class, 
ethnic, spiritual, familial) and unearth forgotten rituals, languages 
and stories (her-stories, it-stories, their-stories). We question the 
circumstances and contexts, and the presence and performativity of 
objects (considered as having artistic qualities) within spaces to 
reveal neglected, disregarded, ignored or lost potentials. 
Szymborska’s poem encourages us to leave the itineraries to which we 
have become accustomed and to distance ourselves from a priori 
discourses - technocratic thinking and bureaucratic controls - that have 
maintained accepted patterns of power and control. We are not interested 
in ‘speak back’ narratives, instead everything that has been found or 
recovered has been subjected to transformations, hybridisations, 
mutations and disintegration.   Imagined as a series of three events in 
three locations in order to emphasise the importance of local 
socio-cultural and political contexts, we will consider the practical 
and beneficial role of art objects and the space(s) they create for and 
towards their users.  The arts’ ability to provoke curiosity, wonder, 
joy and pleasure activates attentiveness, respect and gratitude. We will 
explore the diverse and varied existence of art objects, their 
manifestations and status, and interrogate the space of art and the 
materiality it offers with regard to its potential to foster and support 
empathy, responsibility and response-ability towards others and care for 
and about a better communal life.    We hope the discussions and 
dialogues during the events will be attentive to the connections and 
relations constituted through and alongside art (especially in 
collectives but particularly in women’s collectives)* but also of those 
marginalised and/or peripheral subjects, including the non-human.

Each location navigates the constellation of issues explored through 
interventions that challenge traditional conference or symposium formats.

Within the above framework concerning a paradigm shift, in Lisbon we 
focus on artistic, curatorial, institutional, academic practices and 
artistic research that engage with art objects, art works, collectives 
and exhibitions that respond to three thematic constellations based on 
Szymborska’s poem:   1st thematic constellation: STARS and GODDESSES
  ● Alternative ways of thinking and building knowledge (including, but 
not limited to assemblage and/ or tentacular thinking; practices of 
unlearning and undoing; epistemologies of ignorance, creative unknowing, 
building knowledges anew; non-anthroponormative languages and non-human 
approaches; decentering his-storical framings towards her-stories, 
it-stories, their-stories and other-stories;
● The role of spirituality and faiths in the context of decolonisation 
and endogenic concepts of progression (change);
● The role of materiality and corporeality in imagining new methodologies.

PROPOSALS

We invite proposals for the first event in Lisbon.

We seek individual or collaborative contributions and for creative 
panels, to imagine alternative presentation formats and prioritise 
dialogue, object-based encounters and interventions that occur outside 
of the institution. These may include, but are not limited to, walkshops 
and strolls (itineraries proposed by participants should reflect on the 
issues mobilised by their contributions); gift giving and/ or sharing. 
We are happy to discuss and support any creative ideas prior to proposal 
submissions.

We encourage activities that are dialogical and collaborative, 
responding not only to the above themes, but also to those embedded 
within local contexts or the specific urban spaces of Lisbon, Riga and 
Warsaw.

Contributions must be on material that has not already been published. A 
prospective presenter must also be willing to develop the proposed 
contribution into either a book chapter or journal article, should it be 
selected for inclusion in a publication. Contributions must be in English.
Please submit your proposal with ‘The-Lost-and-Found’ in the subject 
line, and send it to lostandfoundlisbon at gmail.com.
The deadline for sending proposals for creative panels is 31st March 2023.
The deadline for sending proposals for individual or collaborative 
contributions is 15th June 2023. Please submit a single document with 
the following information:
1.    a title for your contribution
2.    an abstract up to 300 words in length; please specify the type of 
contribution (for example, individual or collaborative presentation, 
panel, object-based workshop, walkshop, stroll, gift giving and/ or sharing)
3.    a short biography, including your current institutional 
affiliation (up to 150 words)
Applicants will be notified of decisions by mid April 2023 (creative 
panels) and the end of June 2023 (individual or collaborative 
contributions).

ORGANISERS
The Symposium is organised collaboratively between University of Wrocław 
(Poland), Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Instituto de História 
da Arte - NOVA University Lisbon (Portugal) and Art Academy of Latvia in 
Riga (Latvia). The general concept of this event was conceived within 
the framework of the project ‘Residua of pre-modern relations with art 
in selected contemporary convents in Lesser Poland and Lower Silesia’ 
financed by the National Centre of Science (nr 2021/41/B/HS2/03148).

Scientific Committee:
Agnieszka Patała (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Anna Markowska (University of Wrocław, Poland)
Basia Sliwinska (NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal)
Jana Kukaine (Art Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia)
Janis Taurens (Art Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia)
Margarida Brito Alves (NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal)

Sources:
https://institutodehistoriadaarte.com/2023/02/06/call-for-proposals-the-lost-and-found-symposium/ 

https://uwr.edu.pl/en/call-for-proposals-symposium-on-art-stories/


Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Revising art stories in search of potential changes   (Lisbon, 6-7 
Dec 23). In: ArtHist.net, Feb 8, 2023. <https://arthist.net/archive/38513>.