CFP deadline extended: Home/Making: intersections of craft and home

Call for participation: “Home/Making: intersections of craft and home”

*submission deadline extended to January 13, 2023

Home/Making exhibition: May 12-13, 2023

Home/Making symposium: May 12-13, 2023

Home/Making is a series of events culminating in a two-day, multidisciplinary and multi-modal symposium exploring the intersection of two concepts: craft and home. These terms are expansive, but also unstable, contingent on issues of labour, land, identity, belonging, gender, race, and class. ‘Home’ can be a shelter, a land, a mindset; a place of nourishment, oppression, or labor; contested, sought after, to be escaped. With meaning that shifts according to historical, cultural, socio-economic, and gendered context, the word ‘craft’ applied to cultural production can be subversive, demeaning, elevating or tokenizing; craft is also a verb, a practice, an ethos of making and doing. 

Drawing these terms together opens the discussion to a wide range of critical perspectives on craft, design, architecture, urbanism and more. Through a series of panels, workshops, and keynote speakers, in-person and accessible online, we will draw practitioners and scholars working on these topics into a conversation about craft work in the home, the home as a crafted space, and other triangulations of our two central concepts. Following the symposium events, we will develop key presentations into an edited volume.

“Home/Making: intersections of craft and home” will begin with a keynote presentation by the Home/Making resident in April (tbd). A series of workshops in various Concordia spaces will be scheduled throughout the end of April and beginning of May. On May 12-13, the symposium will be held and creative work emerging from the residency, workshops, and submitted by symposium attendees will be on display at 4th Space, in the Concordia Webster Library, with a keynote lecture on May 12. As many events as possible will be streamed live and archived online.

We invite submissions of creative work, research-creation, paper and panel proposals, engaging with the intersection of craft and home, for the exhibition and symposium that will conclude the Home/Making series.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

-craft’s relationship with geography, landscape, regionality
-craft/design and the planet as home
-cottage industries
-contemporary DIY culture
-craft at home during the Covid-19 lockdowns
-digital technology, social media and the increasing visibility of craft work conducted in the home
-crafting home spaces for marginalized demographics
-‘craftivism’ and ‘home’
-craft and virtual homes
-craft in ‘unhomely’ spaces
-craft and land
-craft and place
-craft and mapping
-craft as a way to feel ‘at home’ in a geography or community
-craft and family life, intergenerational relationships, craft and aging
-a ‘home’ for craft: craft in museums, repositories, archives
-the home as a space of agency or oppression for makers
-making in the home versus outside of the home, the resonance of home-production in craft and design
-thinking about ‘home’ as a way into complicating the craft/design dialectic
-thinking about ‘craft’ as a way of complicating the notion of ‘home’
-domestic practices such as cooking and cleaning as craft
-crafting places to dwell, architecture and urbanism as craft
-crafting interior spaces, interior design
-materials and technology, learning from the ethos of craft in construction, vernacular architecture

We invite submissions of creative work, research creation, and academic papers in four primary formats:

-Creative work / research-creation work, to be displayed in 4th Space, our venue, during the symposium. This may take the form of a poster, the work itself, or a display of photographs/other documentation. Should you wish to submit work, please send a short text of up to 300 words describing the work in the context of your practice, in relation to craft and home, and providing technical or display needs, as well as 2-5 images. 
-15-minute paper presentations: please send an abstract of up to 300 words.
-Panel proposals: please send a brief description and title for your panel, as well as a list of presenters and individual abstracts of up to 300 words. 
-10 minute-lightning talks, in virtual format to allow for remote participation: please send an abstract of up to 300 words, clearly indicating your preference for remote participation.

If you have questions about these formats, or ideas for alternate submissions, feel free to email us. Please send the materials relevant to your submission, along with a short bio (50-100 words) to homemaking2023@gmail.com by January 13, 2023. We are applying for funding to support presenter travel to the conference. If your attendance or choice of in-person/virtual presentation mode is dependent on funding, please let us know.

Should you wish to be added to the Home/Making mailing list, or have any questions about the events, please do get in touch! We look forward to welcoming you to Concordia in Spring 2023.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Molly-Claire Gillett

Hosted by Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Molly-Claire Gillett
Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke|Mooniyang|Montreal