CFP for Panel 'Visual Cultures of Protest: Art and Resistance in South Asia'

Silvia Genovese Announcement
Location
United Kingdom
Subject Fields
Area Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Film and Film History, South Asian History / Studies

Call for Papers for 2022 Association for Art History Conference Panel 

Conference dates: 6-8 April 2022

Location: Goldsmiths, University of London

Deadline for abstracts: 1 November 2021

 

From Sheba Chhachhi’s photo-video installation Record/Resist (2012) to the Sahmat collective’s provision of a space for the exchange of ideas against religious intolerance in their community project Slogans for Communal Harmony (1992), visuals and resistance in South Asia appear to be closely intertwined. While these visual reactions may be contemporary examples, the alignment between visual culture and resistance has in fact existed for centuries. 

This session focuses on the exchanges between art (paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, etc.) and resistance in South Asia, exploring the way visual culture is used to put forth alternative understandings of protest and resistance. Through an interdisciplinary approach, building on works in art history and visual anthropology, this session analyses how different visual cultures can be examples of and tools for resistance. Some key questions that will be explored include, but are not limited to: 

  • How are ideologies resisted through art? 
  • How might the use of artistic media in South Asia lead us to reconsider traditional modes of art as protest? 
  • To what extent can aesthetics be conceptualised as a site of resistance within the South Asian context? 
  • What are the modes of distribution and curation for visuals of resistance? How are they displayed and curated within different spaces? 
  • How might visual culture provoke new ways of seeing and engaging with acts of resistance? 

Ultimately, this session hopes to comprehend visual cultures of protest in South Asia, situating art as resistance within debates of existing hegemonic practices. 

We hope to hold an inter-disciplinary session with contributions from different subject areas. Proposals from a wide range of disciplines are welcome. 

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 November 2021. You can submit your proposals to the convenors Anisha Palat, a.palat@sms.ed.ac.uk, and Silvia Genovese, s.genovese@sms.ed.ac.uk. Please email the convenors if you have any questions. 

Contact Email
s.genovese@sms.ed.ac.uk