[artinfo] SF MOMA call for proposals: Visual Activism Symposium

[Art&Education]

Call for Proposals: Visual Activism Symposium

San Francisco, March 14-16, 2014

<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=6688&L=12819&F=H>iavc.org.uk
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=2690&N=6688&L=2847&F=H>www.sfmoma.org

The International Association of Visual Culture 
(IAVC) invites proposals for its third biennial 
symposium in San Francisco on March 14 to 16, 
2014.

The symposium will be an international gathering 
centered on the concept of visual activism. It 
will explore the relationships between visual 
culture and activist practices across a wide 
range of contexts. Through varied and diverse 
modes of image-making, artists and designers may 
create and manipulate tools of social change. 
Likewise, political activists may utilize visual 
strategies and objects in order to confront and 
address social and political issues. Art can take 
the form of political and social activism, and 
activism often takes on specific, and sometimes 
surprising, visual forms that are not always 
aligned with or recognizable by art-world 
frameworks. During the convening, artists, 
cultural producers, scholars, students, critics, 
organizers, activists, and citizens will engage 
with and offer perspectives on the many questions 
that arise: to what degree do forms of visual 
activism travel? In what ways are they 
necessarily grounded in geographically specific 
spaces and locally specific knowledge? How can 
theorists, scholars, and practitioners engage in 
conversations about abstract or oblique visual 
activism, such as those produced in conditions of 
extreme censorship? How can the complexity of 
governmental or commercial visual activism be 
approached to better address hegemonies of visual 
culture? How does the past become a form of 
visual activism in the present?

Proposals should respond to these questions or 
related topics and may take the form of papers 
(20 minutes), artist talks (20 minutes), short 
performances (five to 30 minutes), or 
lighting-round interventions (five minutes). 
Limited funds are available to support travel. 
Proposals should include a 400-word abstract, 
links to websites with additional publications or 
relevant images and information, and a CV. Please 
send proposals to 
<mailto:edu at sfmoma.org>edu at sfmoma.org (with" 
Visual Activism" as the subject line) no later 
than October 1, 2013.

Free and open to the public, the conference 
comprises various modes of engagement: short and 
long-form presentations, small-group discussions, 
screenings, and performances. It will also be 
paired with Bearing Witness, the second of three 
SFMOMA symposia made possible by the Fraenkel 
Gallery Fund for New Studies in Photography.

Visual Activism is convened by Julia Bryan-Wilson 
(associate professor, modern and contemporary 
art, UC Berkeley), Jennifer A. González 
(associate professor, history of art and visual 
culture, contemporary art, race and 
representation, UC Santa Cruz) and Dominic 
Willsdon (Leanne and George Roberts Curator of 
Education and Public Programs, SFMOMA). It will 
take place at the Brava Theater Center and Yerba 
Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Please email 
<mailto:edu at sfmoma.org>edu at sfmoma.org to be added 
to the mailing list to receive updates about the 
conference such as registration information, the 
calendar of events, and list of participants.