CFP: anthropology, art, craft and design
Migratory Practices Symposium: exchanges between anthropology, art, craft and design
Manchester Metropolitan University, 5-6 September 2006
Deadline for abstracts: 31 May 2006
This symposium aims to bring together artists, makers and academics engaged in ethnographic study and cultural investigation.
Extending the debate
A dialogue between contemporary art and anthropology has emerged over the last ten years. Has craft and design practice been equally involved in this and if so, has it had to transform to embrace social agendas and action in the field? Are there differences in the ways that art, craft and design have drawn on and been drawn to anthropology, and vice versa? What can we learn from asymmetries of involvement between the different practices?Making and ethnography
Cross cultural study has been a consistent feature of many makers’ practice since at least the late nineteenth century, but this activity has had little critical acknowledgement. When makers study culture can their research be thought of as a kind of ethnography and on what basis can this be decided? For example, can a ceramic piece convey ethnographic knowledge in itself, rather than as a means to the production of more conventional forms of knowledge, such as text?Fieldworks
The use of the term ‘field work’ has become a phrase applied to contemporary artistic practice. This seems to align it to traditions of empirical research and taxonomy in the sciences. Is this term adequate to indicate what artists - and anthropologists - are doing ‘in the field’? How do the processes of representation, presentation and analysis of field notes differ between contemporary artistic practice and contemporary anthropological approaches to fieldwork?The ethics of anthropological and artistic production
Anthropological practice has been concerned with evolving a methodology that is ethical. This may appear to differ from some artistic practice in which methods are used to expose issues through mechanisms that in themselves appear unscrupulous. Does this also apply contemporary craft and design practices? Does an apparent difference between anthropology and artistic/craft practice create a polarisation that frustrates any hope of inter-disciplinarity?