"Curating Difficult Knowledge"
April 16-18, 2009
Concordia University, Montréal
How are public spaces used to shape memories of systematic mass
violence? What unique challenges arise in attempts to deploy
narratives and documents of collective suffering for public display?
And what innovations in exhibition, museology, and the activation of
memorial sites might these challenges inspire? Employing as a point
of departure a notion of "difficult knowledge" as that which
challenges or disrupts anticipated experience (and thus potentially
induces transformations in understanding or subjectivity), and
considering "curation" in its deeper meaning of "taking care of," this
conference will provide a venue in which to grapple with these
questions as they arise in theory and practice.
The Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the aftermath
of Violence (CEREV - http://cerev.concordia.ca/) at Concordia
University is pleased to announce our first international conference,
co-sponsored by the Canada Research Chairs in Post-Conflict Studies
and Latin American History. Keynote speakers will include Prof. Roger
Simon, Faculty Director of the University of Toronto's Centre for
Media and Culture in Education and Director of the Testimony and
Historical Memory Project at the Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education.
The specific aims of the conference are:
• To engage an emerging body of interdisciplinary scholarship and
practice around representing and conveying experiences and meanings of
historical suffering and injustice
• To envision and critique innovative attempts at public knowledge
production and transmission about post-conflict experience
• To reflect on the creation of public spaces for the discussion of
past violence as part of community and nation-state recognition of the
past for future generations
We especially encourage participation by scholars, curators, artists,
activists and other practitioners who are engaging with these
questions in the context of museums, memorials, and "sites of
conscience." Our goal is to bring together individuals who are
engaged in experimental curatorial work in the aftermath of violence
with researchers undertaking fine-grained reporting on and analysis of
such work.
Instructions for submission:
We invite 250 word abstracts for 15- or 30-minute presentations that
will explore the conference themes outlined above. Since a central
goal is to foster conversation among participants, we encourage you to
request the shortest time-slot in which you can communicate your key
points in your chosen medium (i.e. a spoken conference paper should
fit in 15 minutes). We welcome the use of photographs, sound/video
clips and other digital media in presentations, and for this reason
are offering the option of a 30-minute time slot. Please send
abstracts, along with a current CV and a 100-word description of your
current area of research/practice to: cerev@alcor.concordia.ca.
Deadline for abstract submission: August 31st, 2008.
Notification: by September 30th, 2008
Pending funding, we hope to be able to offer some travel subsidies to
participants coming from beyond North America. Please indicate in
your submission if such funding would be essential for your
participation.
