RMIT University School of Art will host the 2018 AAANZ conference in December 2018 to open critical dialogue on the histories of art by examining the social contexts of aesthetics and politics. Bringing together art historians, theorists, curators, critics, and artists from across the region, the conference will offer a stimulating four-day program of panels and papers, publication prizes, masterclasses and encounters with Melbourne’s vibrant arts sector with a parallel artistic program to be announced in coming months.

The conference will feature distinguished keynote speakers who will present expanded and alternative frameworks for understanding the diverse contexts and histories of art. Gabi Ngcobo (South Africa), curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale; Genevieve Grieves (AUS), Head of the First Peoples Department at Museums Victoria; and Ema Tavola (Fiji), independent curator are each engaged in critical curatorial practices aimed at democratising and decolonising art institutions and opening up art collections to alternative perspectives and narratives traditionally overlooked by museums and galleries. Art historian Professor Griselda Pollock (UK) from Leeds University is renowned for her postcolonial, queer feminist analysis of the visual arts, visual culture and cultural theory and research of trauma and the aesthetic in contemporary art.

The intersection of art and society is where differing worldviews and opposing epistemologies can meet and clash. Art offers a site for modelling political alternatives, questioning dominant discourses, and producing new historical narratives. Responding to the political, economic and environmental tensions of the present moment, the conference explores the relationship of the arts to social life throughout history. Located in a region marked by multiple and overlapping colonial and postcolonial histories and contemporary processes of globalisation, the conference aims to initiate critical dialogues that foreground the complex contexts, diverse practices, multiple histories, and contested trajectories of art.

Call for Papers

The Conference Committee would like to invite proposals for papers for the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) conference to be held at RMIT University, Melbourne, 5-8 December 2018. 

The call for panel sessions is now closed. The conference committee has reviewed the proposals and more than 60 were accepted, including panels with a full speaker list and artist talks. Listed in the Call for Papers are the panel sessions that are open to paper proposals. The full conference program will be available at the end of September 2018.

The deadline for paper proposals is Monday 3 September 2018.

Please see the submission instructions below and follow the links for the Call for Papers – Abstracts and Guidelines and the Participation Proposal Form.