We invite contributions (in various forms/media) to a symposium which considers Islands as sites of geo-embodied knowledge mediated through experiential engagements with weather.
This Symposium will explore island narratives of kinship and place, understood as and resonate with multiple manifestations of heritage such as (but not confined to) ecological, socio-cultural, and gendered knowledges, and to which we seek artistic and other forms of (environmental) humanities responses.
We welcome proposals for any/all forms of presentation, which address these considerations and interactions, ranging from the traditional conference paper (15 minutes) to sound, film and visual media responses.
We aim to offer a lively hybrid space that gives attendees plenty of opportunity to meet, chat and explore creative presentations. Online we hope to offer a Listening Room featuring artists’ sound works, and cinema screening submitted films, as well as a virtual gallery showcasing documentation of visual work across all media.
Islands have been subject to the processes of surveying and mapping, (Edwards and Mirko 2009); settling the surface, displacing inhabitants and regularising time. Through various forms of visual representation such as maps, illustrations, and object drawings, environment is divided into land and water, setting the ‘scene’ for environmental conflicts. Against this narrative, others have understood islands as enlivened by wateriness, ecologies changing seasonally, inhabitants responding to changes between home and terrain. This is more than a mere geographical location in two-dimensional space. It alludes to an oozy voluminous generative ecotone (Neimanis 2012), of mushy earth and moist air, holding everything together. It is an ecotone, moreover, shaped by weather and the heritage of previous weather events. Together, we assert, weather, culture and lifespaces shape ways of life, traditions and languages. In turn, as Naylor et al (2022) have revealed, ‘the generation and consumption of weather knowledge by individuals and communities happens in particular localities’ and distinct from other ‘weather places’.
We seek to bring artist-researchers and humanities scholars together to share insights and ongoing research which focuses upon islands, location, history, weather, kinship, and ecologies. In this way we hope to examine the more-than-representational registers of Islands, kinship, place and weather, with a focus upon the microgeographies of place-making as a way of shaping and representing a variety of embodied and spatially situated experiences.
Potential themes include, but are not limited to:
- Body as location (human and more-than-human bodies)
- Geo-embodiment across species and space
- Bodies as sensory data collectors
- Weather Bodies and ethical practices
- Mapping through walking and other haptic practices
- Wet ontologies
- Kinship across time – historical connections, contemporary resonances
- Is kinship always recuperative?
- Heritage from below (who tells the stories?)
- History, memory and island narratives
Submission of Proposals:
Proposals for papers must be submitted by email to islandssymposium@gmail.com, by January 15th 2025, and should include the following information:
- Title of the paper/media work (include length if film/audio)
- Abstract/Summary up to 200 words. All presentations are to be in English
- Author(s) name(s), email address, affiliation and a short curricular note (up to 100 words).
The organisers will aim to inform applicants of the outcome by February 25th 2025. Following the symposium our intention is to create an e-book from presented papers and artworks.
Laura Denning 