The call for papers is now open for the International Symposium Daniel Blaufuks: Routes and Intersections, an interdisciplinary event organised by the research group 'Cinema and the World - Studies on Space and Cinema', to be held at the Centre for Comparative Studies in the University of Lisbon School of Arts and Humanities, Lisbon, Portugal, on 9 and 10 October 2017.
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With works that range from large-scale photography, to photobooks and photo essays, to video, film and installations, Daniel Blaufuks has proven himself to be one of the most prolific artists in Portuguese contemporary art. The artist has been deeply engaged with questions surrounding the Holocaust, exile, memory and postmemory. Photography, film and archival material have been the tools chosen for his excavations. Nonetheless, it is impossible to overlook the influence of literature in the artist’s work.
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In this symposium we aim to reflect on two pervading lines in Blaufuks's work: routes and intersections. In Routes we will explore travel through space — be it in extreme conditions such as exile, but also as a way of discovering locations, or travelling through cities — and travel through memory — lived memory, memory that permeates generations, constructed and/or mediated memory. In Intersections the focus will be on the artist's interweaving of multiple media in the construction of expandable projects — including Terezín (2007), All the Memory of the world, part one (2014), Attempting Exhaustion (2016), amongst others — and on the relevance literature takes in his projects.
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With an aim to examine Blaufuks's artistic practice as a stimulating influence in Portuguese and international contemporary art, we invite proposals for 20-minute presentations. The event's working languages will be English and Portuguese. Topics may include (but are not limited to):
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-The role of archival material in the construction of individual/collective memory;
-Holocaust, from post-memory to prosthetic memory;
-Photobooks and literature;
-Road movies and travel diaries;
-Appropriation as an act of creation;
-The atlas and the archive;
-Expanded cinema, photography, and installation art.
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Please send 300-word abstracts and a brief (100-word) biographical note, addressed to the organizers, Sandra Camacho and Filipa do Rosário, to routesandintersections@gmail.com by 16 July 2017.
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For more information, please visit https://routesandintersect.wixsite.com/lisbon2017 and www.comparatistas.edu.pt