[spectre] CFP: Socialist Eco-Aesthetics (Dresden, 4-6 Jun 25)

[Andreas Broeckmann LEU]

From: Marie Meyerding
Date: Jan 31, 2025
Subject: CFP: Socialist Eco-Aesthetics (Dresden, 4-6 Jun 25)

Technische Universität Dresden, Jun 4–06, 2025
Deadline: Mar 2, 2025

Socialist Eco-Aesthetics: Networks of Art and Ecology in the ‘Eastern Bloc’.

Artists from the diverse socialist states—often grouped together as the 
‘Eastern Bloc’—addressed the increasingly urgent ecological issues of 
their time. Just as environmental problems cross borders, artists were 
connected not only across the firm boundaries of the socialist 
countries, but also across the so-called Iron Curtain. At a time when 
the planetary dimensions of the environmental crisis were being 
recognised for the first time, artists joined forces to engage with 
their natural environment in new and critical ways.

This workshop examines the systems in which artists, activists, 
governments and agents in the political and cultural sphere addressed 
ecological issues through art under socialism. Which artistic media have 
been used to convey ecological critique of state-planned economic 
activity including extractivism, nuclear power and agricultural 
industries? In what ways have artists networked to inform, express and 
promote ecological issues? Which state-sanctioned campaigns, exhibitions 
or programmes in the ‘Eastern Bloc’ have focused on environmental 
problems? What focal points existed in national ecology debates and the 
resulting artistic engagements, such as forest dieback in the GDR? 
Furthermore, what might be learned from the way in which governments and 
individuals have dealt with art on local and global environmental issues 
for dealing with today’s climate crisis?

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers that engage with topics 
within and beyond the realms of transnational art history and 
eco-critical art theory. In addition to early career to senior 
academics, artists are also invited to present their research-based 
practice. Submissions should seek to advance interdisciplinary 
discussions on the intersections of art and ecology under socialism. 
Cross-border perspectives are particularly encouraged, especially those 
that illuminate the interactions and negotiations between individuals 
and institutions on art and ecology across state socialisms in Central 
and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Environmental histories of the ‘Eastern Bloc’ and its artistic 
production, distribution and reception practices. - Art theoretical 
approaches to eco-socialism. - The dissemination of ecological 
information and criticism through artistic and activist networks under 
socialism. - Art practices in global socialisms through the lens of 
eco-feminisms and queer ecologies. - Histories of censorship, 
surveillance and state interference in art and environmental movements 
during Cold War politics.

This workshop is designed as a writing seminar. Over three days, there 
will be guided writing and exchange formats lasting several hours, in 
which the researchers will continue to work on their papers, which will 
be presented and discussed together. A confirmed keynote lecture by Maja 
and Reuben Fowkes is planned for the first evening, followed by joint 
visits to the OSTRALE Biennale and the university’s art collection on 
the second and third day. By the end of the workshop, further developed 
papers should be available, which will be revised in the following 
months and then jointly published as a special issue in a peer-reviewed 
journal.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a short biography in one PDF to: 
marie.meyerding at tu-dresden.de

Deadline for submissions: Sunday 2 March 2025.

Contact: Marie Meyerding, marie.meyerding at tu-dresden.de


Reference / Quellennachweis:
CFP: Socialist Eco-Aesthetics (Dresden, 4-6 Jun 25). In: ArtHist.net, 
Jan 31, 2025. <https://arthist.net/archive/43840>.