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12th New Materialisms conference at Maynooth University, Ireland.

Finally, it is here! We are very proud to announce the up-coming 12th New Materialisms conference, in Ireland at Maynooth University!

Call for Papers:

Intersectional Materialisms:

Diversity in Creative Industries, Methods and Practices

Date: August 26th-29th 2024

Location: Maynooth, National University of Ireland

We are delighted to announce the forthcoming 12th New Materialisms Conference on “Intersectional Materialisms: Diversity in Creative Industries, Methods and Practices,” an interdisciplinary platform to explore the convergences and synergies between intersectionality, new materialisms and creative practice. This conference aims to bring together scholars, activists, and practitioners to critically engage with the complexities of subjectivities, power, and material realities through an intersectional and materialist lens with a focus on how the materiality of difference matters in creative practice.

About the Conference:

The conference seeks to foster an inclusive and dynamic space for discussions that transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries with a view to open, yet historically informed, conversations. Intersectionality and Feminist New Materialisms intersect to enrich our understanding of the interconnectedness of human and non-human life, challenging binary conceptualisations, and addressing social, technological, environmental, and political issues with renewed perspectives. The conference is the next in an annual tradition that started in 2010 and was briefly interrupted during the global COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the network has met in Cambridge, UK; Utrecht, NL; Linköping, SE; Turku, FI; Barcelona, ES; Maribor, SI; Melbourne, AU; Warsaw, PL; Paris, FR; Cape Town, ZA; Kassel, GE.

Themes

We invite researchers, artists, professionals, teachers and activists to submit original papers and presentations that engage with the theme of intersectionality within the creative industries, or through creative research methods and practices. We are interested in oral histories, folk practices, digital folk media, inclusive dance, disability powered art, feminist cinema and music, drag, queer and trans creative spaces, productive connections and points of tension; synergy and debate. We follow a range of interdisciplinary conversations, and specifically invite papers that look to decenter colonial histories, knowledges and value systems, which also develop an awareness of the global and racialized politics of emotion. In recent years, the creative industries have witnessed a growing awareness of the complex interplay between various forms of identity and their impact on creativity, representation, and cultural production. Intersectionality, a framework that acknowledges the interconnectedness of multiple social identities and systems of oppression, has become a crucial lens through which to understand and critique the dynamics within the creative sectors. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to foster a deeper exploration of intersectionality’s role in shaping the creative industries, facilitating an inclusive and critical dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and stakeholders.

Intersectionality (Nash, 2018; Banet-Weiser, 2018; Villesche et al., 2018; Hill Collins, 2019; Kanai, 2020) has brought race, class, age, sexuality and disability into everyday feminist discussions which challenge the whiteness of western feminist material culture (Hamad and Taylor, 2015). However, there are also scholars (Puar, 2011; Hinton, et al., 2015) who note some of the ongoing whiteness embedded within new materialism and suggest that ‘race and the very processes through which racialized bodies come to matter (in both senses of the word) are considered to be areas that are underrepresented in many new materialist approaches’ (Hinton, et al., 2015, p. 2). Taking this as a call to action, we also invite papers which investigate and respond to what Geerts and van der Tuin (2013) might call ‘a pattern of interference’, after Barad (2007) and Verloo (2009), where ‘by allowing for relations to be made and made differently, we no longer assume that a social category or a set of social categories has a decisive and uniform effect (essentialism)’ (p.176). Papers, panels, performances and other submissions which take up intersectionality as a critical and creative feminist new materialist turning point, or everyday practice are especially welcomed. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Topics

We invite contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

1. **Representation and Identity in Creative Content:** Analysing how intersectionality influences the representation of diverse identities in art, media, literature, film, and other creative forms.

2. **Production and Creative Processes:** Examining how intersecting identities impact creative processes, collaboration, innovation, and decision-making within various creative domains.

3. **Cultural Production and Social Change:** Exploring how intersectional perspectives contribute to challenging stereotypes, promoting social justice, and fostering inclusive cultural production.

4. **Economic and Structural Inequities:** Investigating how intersectional factors affect access to resources, opportunities, and career advancement within the creative industries.

5. **Audience Reception and Consumption:** Studying how audiences from different intersecting backgrounds engage with and interpret creative content, and how intersectional narratives resonate with diverse audiences.

6. **Intersectional Activism and Advocacy:** Examining the role of intersectional approaches in advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion within creative sectors and their broader societal impact.

7. **Arts Based Methods:** Exploring how arts based methods create spaces for intersectional activism in research.

8. **Posthumanist queer studies and intersectional approaches to sexuality: research in and outside institutions**

9. **Intersectional perspectives on technoscience, AI, and digital cultures: can AI be creative?**

10. **Creative production and minoritarian cultures**.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Jasbir Puar, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Chiara Bonfiglioli, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy

Milla Tiainen & Katve-Kaisa Kontturi, University of Turku, Finland

Susan Luckman, University of South Australia, Australia

Aislinn O’Donnell, Maynooth University, Ireland

**Submission Guidelines:**

We welcome proposals for presentations and panels and encourage diverse modes of engagement including performance and other creative approaches.

For individual presentations, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, along with a brief bio and contact details, to intersectionalhumanities@gmail.com by December 15, 2023. For panel proposals please include abstracts for each paper and the panel’s overall theme. Our preferred format is in-person but we will accommodate virtual presentations as needed. Please include your proposal with information about preferred format and other technical/practical requirements.

**Important Dates:**

– Abstract submission deadline: December 15, 2023

– Notification of acceptance: February 15, 2023

– Conference dates: August 26th to 29th, 2024

**Conference Format:**

Considering global circumstances, the conference will be organised as a hybrid event, offering both in-person and virtual participation options to accommodate diverse attendees.

**Publication Opportunity:**

Selected papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a special issue of Matter: Journal of the New Materialisms or an edited volume dedicated to the encounters between intersectionality and feminist new materialisms.

**Registration:**

Further details regarding registration and the conference schedule will be available on the conference website as the event date approaches. For inquiries and further information, please contact Professor Anna Hickey-Moody, anna.hickeymoody@mu.ie

*Organisers *

Professor Anna Hickey-Moody, Maynooth, IRE

Dr Suvi Pihkala, University of Oulu, FIN

Dr Marissa Willcox, University of Amsterdam, NL

Dr Tapasya Narag, University College Dublin, IRE

Dr Beatriz Revelles Benavente, University of Granada, SP

Dr Monika Rogowska-Stangret, University of Bialystok, PL

Professor Iris van der Tuin, Utrecht University, NL

Professor Maria Tamboukou, University of East London, UK

Professor Cecilia Åsberg, Linköping University, SWE

Dr Goda Klumbytė, University of Kassel, DEN

Professor Felicity Colman, University of the Arts London, UK

Image credit: Frances Cannon

Ecocene 

Dear Readers,

Ecocene has just published its latest issue at https://ecocene.kapadokya.edu.tr. We invite you to check out the Table of Contents here and then visit web site to read articles and items of interest.

Resisting Toxic Climates: Gender, Colonialism, and Environment

Wed 26 – Thu 27 Jul 2023, 09:00 – 17:30

British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences bring together scholars and specialists from around the world to explore themes related to health and wellbeing.

Whether it’s the spectacular event of an oil spill or the scarcely perceptible pollution of micro-plastics, toxicity is central to the environmental concerns of today. To exist in the world means being vulnerable to multiple forms of toxicity. Yet, conditions of vulnerability are unequal, shaped by enduring global histories of colonialism and capitalism.

This event will highlight the toxic valences of coloniality, asking how toxicity manifests and mutates with particular regard to gender across variously situated bodies, lands and waterscapes. While we are concerned with the interrelated forms of material toxicity that threaten the wellbeing of human and more-than-human communities, we also seek to facilitate dialogue around pertinent social, political and cultural discourses of toxification. Operating at the intersections of the medical and environmental humanities, and centering feminist, queer, decolonial and Indigenous paradigms, this interdisciplinary event brings together scholars and practitioners working across disciplines and employing creative and/or critical modes of enquiry to explore these topics.

Resisting Toxic Climates will feature a series of original artworks by Natasha Thembiso Ruwona and Caitlin Stobie, produced in response to the themes and setting of the event.

The programme will feature a tour of the exhibition Shipping Roots by Keg De Sousa, led by the exhibition curator Emma Nicolson.

Conference convenors

  • Dr Rebecca Macklin, University of Edinburgh
  • Dr Alexandra Campbell, University of Glasgow
  • Professor Michelle Keown, University of Edinburgh

Speakers

  • Professor Mishuana Goeman, University of Buffalo
  • Professor Savage Bear, McMaster University
  • Dr Metzli Yoalli Rodriguez, Forest Lake University
  • Dr Hannah Boast, University of Edinburgh
  • Professor Astrida Niemanis, University of British Columbia Okanagan
  • Dr Christine Okoth, Kings College London
  • Dr Treasa De Loughery, University College Dublin
  • Dr Dipali Mathur, Ulster University
  • Dr Jason Allen-Paisant, University of Manchester
  • Dr Thandi Loewenson, Royal College of Art
  • Dr Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawaii
  • Dr Alycia Pirmohamed, University of Cambridge
  • Professor Patricia Widener, Florida Atlantic University
  • Dr J.T. Roane, Rutgers University
  • Dr Caitlin Stobie, University of Leeds
  • Natasha Thembiso Ruwona

Please download the programme here

If you have any questions about this event please refer to our events FAQs or email conferences@thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Image: Carolina Caycedo, ‘Thanks For Hosting Us, We Are Healing our Broken Bodies / Gracias por hospedarnos. Estamos sanando nuestros cuerpos rotos’, 2019.1 channel HD Video 8:48 min, color and sound. With: Marina Magalhaes (Choreography), José Richard Aviles, Tatiana Zamir, Belle Alvarez, Bianca Medina, Isis Avalos, Patty Huerta, Celeste Tavares. Photographer: Bobby Gordon. Courtesy of the artist.

HAUNTED WATERS

Call for particapation

Our friends in the Design + Posthumanism Network has asked us to share this, so of course we do.

Haunted Waters: We are collecting stories, histories and material evidence from all over the world about bodies of water that are “haunted” by chemical contamination. We are now in search of people who have relationships and stories about contaminated water. We are collecting stories and also bottles with water from the contaminated sites. The bottles and the stories will be part of an archive both online and in an exhibition starting in December in Brussels.

Would you like to help us and/or have any ideas of people to invite?

ABOUT HAUNTED WATERS:

“We are collecting stories, histories and material evidence from all over the world about bodies of water that are “haunted” by chemical contamination. Contaminants are substances that due to different factors have ended up in our waters. Just like ghosts, they are invisible to the naked eye, relate to local historic events and are trapped in places where they aren’t meant to be. To learn how to live with these ghosts, first, we need to get to know them and their stories.

We are attempting to make the invisible contaminants visible, and we need your help. You are invited to join forces and become a ghost hunter! Your contribution will help us visualise the invisible ghostly contaminants that will be used in an art exhibition in Brussels in 2024.

Here is a link to a website to take part in the project: https://nonhuman-nonsense.com/hauntedwaters

We are Nonhuman Nonsense, a research-driven art and design studio, based in Berlin, https://nonhuman-nonsense.com/

Haunted Waters is a project by Nonhuman Nonsense & Caterina Cacciatori (EU JRC water quality lab), part of the art & science project NaturArchy at JRC Ispra, European Commission: https://resonances.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ghosts-anthropocene

Get in touch!

Warmly,

Linnea & Filips 

Nonhuman Nonsense

nonhuman-nonsense.com
@nonhuman_nonsense

Human-Yeast Interrelations: Publication & Exhibit

by Olga Timurgalieva, Patrícia Moreira, and Eva Direito

The art book, Yeasts as We Do Not Know Them, chronicles the roles of single-celled fungal microbes, mainly yeasts, in human lives. The art project, co-produced by designer Eva Direito, biotechnologist Patricia Moreira, and art researcher Olga Timurgalieva, traces the ways these single-celled fungal microbes are involved in producing food and beverage, medicine, animal feed, textile detergents, pigments, biofuels, and other products. 

Pages 20 and 21 of the book, Yeasts As We Do Not Know Them, related to yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, used to produce sugar substitute xylitol, 2022. ©Eva Direito, Patricia Moreira, Olga Timurgalieva.

Nowadays, in the abundance of industrially manufactured products, we are often unaware of how and from which materials some specific things are made. However, in light of climate change and increasing pollution in the atmosphere, we are called upon to learn about “the substances that surround us, those for which we may be somewhat responsible, those that may harm us, those that may harm others, and those that we suspect we do not know enough about” (Alaimo, 2010, p. 18). The art book, Yeasts as We Do Not Know Them, therefore, maps some of the human-yeast interrelations and invites the audiences to learn about the materials produced with the application of yeasts.  

Pages 38 and 39 of the book, Yeasts As We Do Not Know Them, related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae used in bioethanol production, 2022. ©Eva Direito, Patricia Moreira, Olga Timurgalieva.
Pages 10 and 11 of the book, Yeasts As We Do Not Know Them, related to yeast, Pichia pastoris, studied to develop vaccines against Human papillomavirus infection, 2022. ©Eva Direito, Patricia Moreira, Olga Timurgalieva.

The book’s concept emerged under the influence of the 2021-22 PhD course “Gender and Sustainability – Introducing Feminist Environmental Humanities” (FAD3115) collaboratively delivered by the School of Architecture and the Built Environment of KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the Posthumanities Hub. The course focused on post-disciplinary approaches to sustainability and incorporated diverse critical and creative perspectives from environmental humanities. 

Inspired by the practices at the intersection of feminist theories and sustainability presented during the course, we conceived the book as practice-oriented research. The cross-disciplinary collective work has allowed us to dive into the diversity of human-yeast interspecies relations and to convert our leanings into the tangible form of the book. 

We were lucky to have exhibited the prototype of the book in Hong Kong and Portugal. In Hong Kong, the book was featured as a part of the exhibition, Nexus between Art, Practice & Researchat the gallery Floating Projects at Jockey Club Creative Art Centre. Later, on 17 September 2022, we presented the project on the campus of the Catholic University of Portugal in Porto as part of the celebration of International Microorganism Day. The celebration event was co-organized with the Federation of European Microbiology Societies (FEMS). The event gathered more than 500 students and highlighted numerous crucial roles that microbes play in nature and their relation to human society.

Yeasts As We Do Not Know Them at the exhibition, Nexus between Art, Practice & Research, Floating Projects, Jockey Club Creative Art Centre, Hong Kong, 14-31 July 2022. Exhibition view. Photo Credit: Kay Mei Ling Beadman.

The art book, Yeasts as We Do Not Know Them, has been produced with financial support by Portuguese National Funds from FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology through the Strategic Projects CITAR (Research Centre in Science and Technology of the Arts) [grant number UID/EAT/0622/2016].

Featured Image: Pages 12 and 13 of the book, Yeasts As We Do Not Know Them, include images, Bear in mind that bread made from Magic Yeast will cure indigestion: get the entire menagerie. Presumably, 1880-1890. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark Link: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/mu8gcrx7

References:

Alaimo, S. (2010). Bodily natures: Science, environment, and the material self. Indiana University Press.

Eva Direito holds a degree in Art Conservation and is currently doing her master’s degree in Conservation of New Media Art at the School of Arts (UCP, Portugal). Having received an artistic education, Eva works with digital and analog photography and graphic design. During the past few years, she’s been working as Art Director in short movies for the School of Arts, some of which had been nominated for prizes (“Our House in Flames” by Miguel Mesquita, at Curtas Festival of Vila do Conde, Portugal) and others had won awards, such as “Hysteria” by Luísa Campino, at Sophia Awards, Portugal. 

Patrícia Moreira holds a PhD in Biotechnology with a specialization in Biochemical Engineering from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP, Portugal). She is an Assistant Professor at the School of Arts (UCP). She is an integrated member of the Center for Research in Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR), coordinator of the Area-Focus Heritage, Conservation, and Restoration of CITAR, and collaborator of the Center for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry (UCP). Her main research area is innovation in Biotechnology for Cultural Heritage, with emphasis on biodeterioration, sustainability, citizen science Green Conservation, and bio-art practices. 

Olga Timurgalieva is a PhD candidate at City University of Hong Kong and a former visiting researcher at King’s College London. Awarded by the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme, her research investigates the intersections of contemporary art, microbiology, and ecocriticism, with a particular focus on fungal microbes and their interspecies relations. Olga has worked in art institutions, including V-A-C Foundation (Moscow) and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe), and co-curated the exhibition, “Here and Elsewhere,” at the Kobro Gallery, The Strzemiński Academy of Art (Lodz) and the festival, “Seasons of Media Arts 2019,” at the ZKM. 

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