Invitation to Artists: The Energy Force of Matriculture in Mythology and Storytelling Around the World (Southeast Asia submissions welcome)

Volume 3, Issue 1 (May 2022)

Invitation to Artists, Musicians, and Artisans

31 March 2021: deadline for proposals

THEME: The Energy Force of Matriculture in Mythology and Storytelling Around the World

Mythology, storytelling, and story-work hold the parameters of conscious (and unconscious) transmission of valorizing identifiers for a culture, engaging and permeating everyday values. These values and teachings, handed down within traditional stories, are being reinvigorated and even reinterpreted in contemporary times. These features are embedded in language and mythology, and many of these cultures share ancestral heritages which have been handed down through centuries, spanning millennia - even though their original languages experienced colonizing factors and may be diluted today. This issue of Matrix will feature current understandings of matricultural mythologies and ancient knowledges that are based in oral traditions, as well as historical accounts of pre-colonial protocols and their manifestations in contemporary life cycles and ceremonies.

Today, there is a decisive revitalization of Indigenous traditional knowledge and oral history through the revealing of ancient ceremonies and myths passed on in stories, song, and art. This reclaiming has direct links to the social well-being of clans and communities, and it heightens an understanding of matriculture.

The re-awakening of matricultural Indigenous cultures is re-energizing the arts, songs, performances, and stories of their communities, illustrating and actualizing associated ancient ceremonies and protocols. Examples include the carving of wood and songket fabric arts of the Minangkabau in southeastern Asia. Some of this contemporary artwork is defined by ancestral knowledge and it can be described as decolonizing. Others also embarking upon decolonizing journeys may wish to elaborate on new perspectives and updated creative representations with modern technologies. These manifestations are the living witness that Indigenous cultures around the globe are thriving and are connected with their original ancestral ways.

By sharing the arts of mythology, this issue of Matrix will increase awareness about the resiliency of global matricultures, and the central role played by women among them. Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies will feature arts, crafts, videos, and other creative works relating to the sharing and transmission of matricultural myths and story work in Volume 3, Issue I (May 2022).

KEY DATES

31 March 2021: deadline for proposals

30 April 2021: finalize selections and notification to creators

31 December 2021: deadline for work submission

1 May 2022: issue available online (may be earlier), open access

PROPOSAL APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

1. Develop an outline or description of your idea (hard copy, soundtrack, or sketch)

2. Describe the inspiration or motivation behind your piece(s) or artwork (100-150 words)

3. Consider supplying images of your past work to convey design ideas.

4. Share details about your creative background (100-150 words, with URL if available).

5. Send this package to Margaret or Idoia (below)

For any questions, please contact Margaret Kress (Margaret.Kress@unb.ca), Idoia Arana-Beobide (idoia.ab@networkonculture.ca), or the Editorial Collective of Matrix (info@networkonculture.ca).

Submission via email to: Margaret.Kress@unb.ca, idoia.ab@networkonculture.ca, or info@networkonculture.ca (subject line: Matrix Vol 3, Issue 1)

About Matrix

Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal published by the International Network for Training, Education, and Research on Culture (Network on Culture), Canada. Matrix is published online on a biannual basis.

For many years, scholarship has explored the expression and role of women in culture from various perspectives such as kinship, economics, ritual, etc, but so far, the idea of approaching culture as a whole, taking the female world as primary, as a cultural system in Geertz’ classical sense of the term – a matriculture – has gone unnoticed. Some cultures have a weakly defined matricultural system; others have strong matricultural systems with various ramifications that may include, but are not limited to, matrilineal kinship, matrilocality, matriarchal governance features – all of which have serious consequences relative to the socio-cultural status of women, men, children, and the entire community of humans, animals, and the environment.

The main objective of Matrix is to provide a forum for those who are working from this theoretical stance. We encourage submissions from scholars, community members, and other knowledge keepers from around the world who are ready to take a new look at the ways in which people - women and men, historically and currently - have organized themselves into meaningful relationships; the myths, customs, and laws which support these relationships; and the ways in which researchers have documented and perhaps mis-labeled the matricultures they encounter.

For more information, visit our website: https://www.networkonculture.ca/activities/matrix