UAL’s Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) is co-hosting a conference with the University of Cambridge entitled Worldviews: Latin American Art and the Decolonial Turn, in November 2021. Supported by the work of the Latin America Regional Group and co-ordinated by Dr Michael Asbery at UAL, the conference will discuss how decoloniality acts as a frame of reference in the study of Latin American Art.

Worldviews will examine how such a frame has developed over the past decade, notably through a progressive interest in indigenous and Afro-descendent practices. We will question how critical discourse is constructed, while a disconnect still exists between scholarly debate and the social forces that struggle against marginalisation and racism.

Scholars, curators and artists are invited to submit papers on the five main themes of the conference, each of which will be discussed in a panel chaired by a specialist. Successful applicants will then submit a 20-minute pre-recorded presentation on the specific theme, which will be made available to view online in advance of the live events. The conference’s keynote presentations and roundtable discussions will be held live on Zoom.

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday 10 August 2021. Submissions should include a title, abstract (300 words maximum), short author bio (150 words maximum), CV or website link, institutional affiliation (if applicable) and contact details. Please email submissions to Dr Michael Adbury and Dr Sofia Gotti at conferenceworldviews@gmail.com and state the theme of interest in the subject line. Papers can be presented in either Spanish, Portuguese or English.

We welcome papers on the following themes

The Poetics of Abya Yala: Towards a Non-Colonial History of Contemporary Art

Discussion areas:

• Looking at periods of indigenous art to challenge the understood origins of western art history.
• Exploring indigenous creation rooted in material culture to defend its uniqueness against the homogeny of multiculturalism.
• The dichotomy between modernity and indigeneity.
• The ways indigeneity has characterised modern art production in Latin America.
• The conditions under which indigenous art is circulating within the art system.
• The relationship between indigenous aesthetics and insurgent political movements.

Political Bodies, Gender and Race

• Chair: Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
• Keynote: Lilia Moritz Schwarcz

Discussion areas:

• Deconstructing the kinds of political engagement encouraged through use of the body as a trope of radical art.
• The body as a receptable or catalyst of violence.
• Bodily inscriptions and cartographies.
• The body as embodiment of community.
• The gendered body.

Activism and Collective Practice

• Chair: Keyna Eleison
• Keynote: Venutra Profana

Discussion areas:

• Examining the disconnect between intellectual institutional practices and insurgent political forces that motivate political activism.
• Looking at how grassroots movements use artistic practice as a form of activism.
• Community-based practice as art.
• Trans-gender activism.
• Political denunciation and protest.

Margins and Institutions: New Curatorial Strategies

• Chair: Catherine de Zegher
• Keynote: Catherine David

Discussion areas:

• In the context of museums and galleries in Western Europe and North America holding more exhibitions by artists from Latin America, exploring the intersect between “global art” discourse and curatorial initiatives specific to region.
• The consequences of a heritage drain at local level.
• The ways local or national museums within Latin America navigate their own narratives among emerging discourses in Europe and America.
• The ways collections from Latin America are integrated and displayed within the museums.

Decolonising the Canon

• Chair: Ana Magalhães
• Keynote: Rafael Cardoso

Discussion areas:

• The inclusion of Latin American art in “global art narratives” and how we understand this inclusion beyond the level of an individual artist or movement.
• The canon, its evolution from modernist to contemporary and how this affects discourse at a national, regional and local level.
• Proposing new historical perspectives through which to understand and re-position contemporary art in relation to its transnational origins.
• The ways in which inclusion can also be an act of disruption.
• How contemporary art is understood in relation to the canon.

Call for papers in Spanish (PDF, 396KB)

Call for papers in Portuguese (PDF, 389KB)

Read more about TrAIN, a cross disciplinary hub for historical, theoretical and practice-based research in art and design.