Association of American Geographers’ (AAG) Annual Meeting

Chicago, USA
21-25 April 2015
Conference website: http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/about_the_meeting

Session:

Public Art Geographies: Territoriality, Transculturalism, Therapy

Sponsored by the Cultural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers

Convenors:
Dr Martin Zebracki (University of Leeds, UK),
Dr joni m palmer (University of New Mexico, USA)
Dr Pauline Guinard (Ecole normale supérieure de Paris, France)

Geographical work over the last decade has seen an upsurge in interest in everyday public art—formal or informal creative objects, activities or performances beyond gallery and museum spaces—which is permanently or temporarily situated on sites that are essentially open to the society at large. Whereas considerable academic engagement with public art can be identified with regard to issues of urban regeneration, creative cities, cultural policy and modes of creative research, this session welcomes papers that critically attend to three themes that reflect broader concerns in topical debates in social and cultural studies.

1) Territoriality: how are struggles over space and attendant issues of social identity, belonging, recognition and inclusion related to everyday public art practices? Here we are specifically interested in papers that see the public artscape through the lens of critical socio-spatial justice and territorial multi-actor control or friction.

2) Transculturalism: how do everyday public art practices connect to cultural diversities in people within and between localities? The session particularly encourages accounts on the public artscape’s intersectionalities between sex, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, class, age, religion and (dis)ability.

3) Therapy: how can everyday public art practices help to both articulate and activate cultural diversities for the sake of the common weal and, accordingly, produce meaningful place engagements through—and for—the self, other and community? As such, this session especially welcomes contributions that deepen our understanding of the relationships between the public artscape and wellbeing and of individual as well as collective care for the living environment.

We seek theoretical, methodological and/or empirical insights that address one or more of the above themes in the light of everyday lived experiences of public art and in relation to diverse geographical settings. The session is open to any school of thought and methodological and experimental approaches.

Please send a max. 100-word bio and max. 200-word abstract as one document to Dr joni m palmer (Joni.Palmer@colorado.edu) by 10 October 2014.

Dr Pauline Guinard (Pauline.Guinard@gmail.com) will contact contributors about our review of the abstracts. Selected contributors are expected to submit abstracts on the conference website by the deadline of 5 November 2014. All presenters are required to settle the registration fee before they can submit their abstracts.

Please let Dr Martin Zebracki (M.M.Zebracki@leeds.ac.uk) know should you require any further information about this CFP.