Congrès 2016 de l’Association d’art des universités du Canada (AAUC)

Resurgence of Our Pasts in Our Present: Forms and Strategies of Commemoration in Canadian Public Space

The diversification of populations and the intensification of immigration in Canada are having an impact on public commemoration practices. Today, the range of identity affiliations displayed in this country challenge, among other things, standards and codes traditionally associated with public art, as well as the ways in which it can be managed. Historically established and funded by political and economical elites, the commemoration of people, events and values on Canadian soil is nowadays increasingly subject to debates and negotiations involving different communities. However, the diversity of collective pasts in Canada is such that their representation in public space can become a source of conflict, and even exacerbate historical antagonisms. For this session, we invite researchers and artists to reflect, through case studies, on forms and strategies of remembrance developed or preferred by different groups, including ethnic, cultural, religious, and sexual minorities, to register their presence in public space.

  • Submissions are welcome for papers to be given in either French or 
  • English; they have to be sent to the session chairs Analays Alvarez [a.alvarezhernandez@[at]utoronto.ca] and Annnie Gérin [gerin.annie@[at]uqam.ca] by June 24, 2016, at the latest.
  • Submissions must include: the name and email address of the applicant; 
  • the applicant's institutional affiliation and rank; the paper title; an 
  • abstract (150 words maximum); and a brief bio (150 words).

Proposals may be submitted by current members or non-members of UAAC. Non-members must become members of UAAC and pay registration fees in order to present a paper at the conference. Membership dues and registration fees must be received by October 1, 2016. Please see complete information on the UAAC website at www.uaac-aauc.com.

Slowness and Sleep in Modern and Contemporary Art

This session will explore how slowness and sleep may be interpreted in modern and contemporary art. It will focus on case studies of artistic projects that manage to critically carve out spaces—or strive to stake a claim—within hegemonic environments of acceleration. Focusing on specific works will allow for reflection on how artists create singular or alternate temporalities and durations which—partly due to their slowness—are resistant to the systems and economies of control that depend on accelerated speeds of processing. Increasingly, we live in a world engaged in the ongoing management of individual attentiveness and the impairment of perception within the compulsory routines of contemporary technological culture. Against this backdrop, slowness and sleep may be envisioned as a restorative withdrawal that is intrinsically incompatible with the capitalist marketplace—which is pushing us into constant activity, eroding forms of community and political expression, and damaging the fabric of everyday life.

  • Proposals for papers shall not exceed 150 words and are to be submitted to:
  • Dan Adler, York University dadler@[at]yorku.ca  and Jessica Wyman, OCAD University jwyman@[at]faculty.ocadu.ca
  • Submissions must include: the name and email address of the applicant; the applicant's institutional affiliation and rank; the paper title; an abstract (150 words maximum); and a brief bio (150 words).

Proposals may be submitted by current members or non-members of UAAC. Non-members must become members of UAAC and pay registration fees in order to present a paper at the conference. Membership dues and registration fees must be received by October 1, 2016.

The conference is open to post-secondary faculty in all fields of the visual arts (art history, fine arts, visual culture, material culture, museum studies, art conservation, etc.), visual artists, curators, practitioner/researchers, as well as independent scholars in such fields.

Nourishment of the Soul and Body

In Early Modern Europe, rituals of consumption—banqueting, drinking, and court spectacle—became important tools of political interaction and social affiliation. How did the dual representation of gardens and food become inextricably intertwined in the iconography of Early Modern visual art? To what extent were the rich mythological programmes of painting and sculpture indebted to contemporary dining habits, and how might the modern viewer explore the broader colonial, sexual, and political dimensions of the period through an art historical analysis of the visual uses of food? This session invites papers that deal with the interconnected worlds of nourishment, pleasure, and politics in Renaissance and Baroque visual art and material culture.

Topics might include ornamentation of the Renaissance villa, still-life paintings of food and flowers from the Dutch Golden Age, garden design and landscape architecture in aristocratic France, opulence and splendour in banqueting scenes by Rubens, or any related theme.

Allison Fisher: allison.nadine.fisher@[at]gmail.com