Conference - Mobility of Aesthetics: Registration now open

02/08/2018

The conference "Mobility of Aesthetics" will take place in Warsaw on 12 and 13 October 2018.

The preliminary programme of the conference is now available and more detailed information will be published shortly.

If you already want to register, you can do so by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. Registration for the conference is open until September 15.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the conference - in terms of content or organisation - please do not hesitate to contact the organisers.

This International Conference is coorganized by Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute and International Theatre Institute Germany with support of the European networks ENICPA and On-the-move as well as Galeria Zachęta, Warsaw.

Rethinking the mobilities of aesthetics

In past years the image of mobility as departing from one stable place with certain sets of values, ideas, cultural patterns, customs and also aesthetics has been challenged: The idea of distinct cultural sets meeting with those of others at crossroads, in theatres, shopping malls, galleries and concert halls, thus initiating a multicultural dialogue, seems no longer valid in a “liquid“ modernity. Today, many people experience culture itself as mobile – not because they left a “home”, but because from the very beginning their reality is characterized by a state of constant movement. On the other hand, we are witnessing the return of a certain longing for stability, for the acknowledgment of stable “sources“ and identities. These two perceptions both provoke a rethinking of concepts, potentials and problems of cultural mobility.

How can culture and aesthetics be mobile when the whole world is liquid? What can be a response to the growing number of those who do not want to be mobile any more and who act strongly against those who try to cross the borders? And is it appropriate to discuss a fluidity of culture when peoples‘ mobility is increasingly involuntary and violently forced?

The conference shall pose these questions in the context of the arts and aesthetics by challenging the consequences and potentials of moving narratives and images, problematising the relations between and within cultures and their aesthetics.