Workshop: Fabricating Fashion? Curating and Creating Pacific Fibre Arts and Adornments

For more information, see:

• www.fijianart.sru.uea.ac.uk/
• www.facebook.com/fijianartproject
• www.londonpacificfashion.org

Museums Association Annual Conference & Exhibition

8-9 November 2012

Edinburgh

As Europe’s largest conference for museum professionals, the event is packed with thought-provoking sessions and essential networking opportunities. It is a great opportuntiy to think creatively, engage with colleagues and develop new skills.

The conference themes are national identity, social justice, and ‘Museums 2020’ - the MA’s new project to create a dynamic vision for museums. 

Keynote speakers include:

• Fiona Hyslop, cabinet secretary for culture and external affairs
• Aamer Anwar, human rights lawyer
• Martin Roth, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Details of the conference programme can be found at www.museumsassociation.org/conference

There are greatly reduced rates for those booking before 30 August 2012.

Run alongside the conference is the annual exhibition, which will host 60 of the top companies working in the sector. 

The exhibition is free to attend, and in addition there is a free MP workshop programme which will give visitors some great ideas for their museums. 

More information can be found at: www.museumsassociation.org/visitexhibition

RAI Photo Competition: The Body Canvas

The Royal Anthropolical Institute are holding their third international photography competition, and are asking people to submit:

Engaging photographs that explore biological, cross-cultural and social elements of body art and modification in relation to these categories:

1) Tattoos and Scarification

2) Piercings and Body Reshaping

Extended Deadline 31 October 2012

More information at: http://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/your-space/photography/the-body-canvas-photo-competition.html

Conference: Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity

We are pleased to announce the details of the conference ‘Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity’ at the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna, on the 20th to 22nd November, 2012. 

This is part of a two-year international research project led by Dr Leon Wainwright (The Open University, UK) and funded by HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area, the European Science Foundation).

‘Disturbing Pasts’ brings together artists, photographers, curators, policy makers and academics from around the world, with the aim of networking with one another and exploring creative engagements with controversial and traumatic pasts in art practice, curating and museums.

Our theme:    

Traumatic pasts have complex and often dramatic influences on the present. In many countries, legacies of war, colonialism, genocide and oppression return again and again to dominate contemporary politics, culture and society. The controversies surrounding traumatic pasts can shape policy, make or break governments, trigger mass demonstrations, and even spark violent confrontation. These pasts also inspire rich visual and creative responses, through which the past is remembered, remade and challenged, and the public space of the modern museum is the primary venue for these responses.

Confirmed speakers include artists, curators, policy-makers and academics:
Peju Layiwola, Dierk Schmidt, T. Shanaathanan, Christopher Cozier, Rita Duffy, Paul Lowe, Rafał Betlejewski, Joanna Rajkowska, Heather Shearer, John Timberlake, Shan McAnena, Sofia Dyak, Wayne Modest, Liv Ramskjær, Maria Six-Hohenbalken, Margit Berner, Clara Himmelheber, Maruska Svasek, Fiona Magowan, Alexander Etkind, Uilleam Blacker, Andrij Portnow, Elizabeth Edwards, Sigrid Lien, Susan Legêne, Anette Hoffmann, Erica Lehrer, Simon Faulkner, Carol Tulloch

‘Disturbing Pasts’ marks a collaboration between three HERA-sponsored research consortia drawn from universities throughout Europe, in partnership with the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna. They are:
o    ‘Creativity and Innovation in a World of Movement’ (CIM)
o    ‘Photographs, Colonial Legacy and Museums in Contemporary European Culture’ (PhotoCLEC)
o    ‘Memory at War’ (MAW)

The project will generate audio-visual material to be made available through the Open Arts Archive (www.openartsarchive.org) and published as a special issue of the Open Arts Journal (www.openartsjournal.org).

Entrance to the conference is free, but places are limited, and so we ask that you please reserve in advance by writing to Julia Binter: Julia.Binter@ethno-museum.ac.at

Committee members for the project include: Dr Leon Wainwright (The Open University, UK), Dr Barbara Plankensteiner (Museum of Ethnology, Vienna), Dr Maruska Svasek (Queen’s University, Belfast), Professor Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University, Leicester), Professor Alexander Etkind and Dr Uilleam Blacker (University of Cambridge).
                         
The project '‘Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity’ is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, DASTI, ETF, FNR, FWF, HAZU, IRCHSS, MHEST, NWO, RANNIS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme.