Building peace through culture: art, memory, landscape, time
Tue 8 - Wed 9 Mar 2022
- Accessibility
- Online and in person
- Venue
- University of Cambridge and online
- Price
- Free
- Event series
- The British Academy Conferences
British Academy Conferences bring together scholars and specialists from around the world to consider and evaluate new research in the humanities and social sciences.
This in-person and online conference will explore emerging avenues of reconciliation and campaigns for transitional justice by focusing on the relationship between art, memory, landscape and time. History is shaped by schematic narratives which often submerge victims’ experiences, diminishing their agency by historicising issues. Art can disrupt this temporal paradigm. We will consider how this can be harnessed in human-rights activism and peacebuilding work.
In countries where disappearances, atrocities and conflicts cause painful experiences of personal and collective trauma, art can intervene in this process, facilitating a dialogic approach to memorialisation, reconciliation, and peacebuilding.
We will discuss textile art such as the Chilean arpilleras and Colombian testimonial textiles, as well as other symbolic representations that are used in campaigns for the disappeared. We will discuss cultural projects that work with peace signatories and victims in post-conflict situations.
We will also reflect on landscape and time, exploring the relationship between memory and public space. This panel will consider the links between memory and the built environment, focusing on the importance of physical spaces in post-conflict situations.
Some of the speakers have an interest in cyberculture, visual representations of military conflicts and digital resources in the field of conflict resolution. In their respective projects they use online mapping tools, digital planning projections and digital art repositories. We hope that our interdisciplinary conference will advance knowledge in fields as wide ranging as cultural studies, art history, politics, history, geography nursing and digital humanities.
This event is taking place in collaboration with the exhibition What lies Beneath: Women Politics Textiles, curated by Naomi Polonsky and Lorna Dillon.
Conference convenor:
Dr Lorna Dillon, University of Cambridge
Day 1 Speakers
Art
Juana Alicia Ruiz Hernández, Colombian artist from the Tejedoras de Mampuján
Robinson Barría, Chilean sculptor
Naomi Polonsky, Assistant Curator of the New Hall Art Collection
Nengi Omuku, Nigerian artist
Dr Emma Shercliff, Arts University Bournemouth
Landscape
Dr Iosif Kovras, University of Cyprus
Dr Adrian Grant, Ulster University
Volodymyr Sheiko, Director General of the Ukrainian Institute
Day 2 Speakers
Memory
Dr Lorna Dillon, University of Cambridge
Dr Jacqueline Adams, University of California, Berkeley
Professor Marjorie Agosin, Wellesley College
Erika Silva Urbano, Colectivo Memorarte and Universidad de Valparaíso
Time
Professor Claire Taylor, University of Liverpool
Dr Beatriz Arias, University of Antioquia
Professor Berit Bliesemann de Guevara, Aberystwyth University
Dr David Shim, University of Groningen
Isabel González, University of Antioquia and Archivo Digital de Textiles Testimoniales de Colombia
The programme is available online. This conference will have Spanish English interpretation. Interpretación de inglés y español.
Book online tickets using the registration links below.
The in-person element of the conference will be held in Cambridge, UK. If you would like to attend the conference in person, please email [email protected] please note that in-person tickets are limited and will be made available on a first come first served basis.
For any enquiries about this conference contact Dr Lorna Dillon, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge [email protected]
Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
Image: Memorarte. 2018. ¿Dónde están? Photo by Marcelo Aragonese
Registration
Book Day 1Day 1 will take place on Tuesday 8 March at 14.30 - 17.00 GMT (09.30 in Colombia; 11.30 in Chile)
Registration
Book Day 2Day 2 will take place on Wednesday 9 March at 14.30 - 17.00 GMT (09.30 in Colombia; 11.30 in Chile)