Call for proposals: international conference ANOTHER ARTWORLD: Manifestations and Conditions of Equity in Visual Arts

The UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management (Interculturalism and Mediation in the Balkans), in cooperation with the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia, is organizing the international scientific conference ANOTHER ARTWORLD: Manifestations and Conditions of Equity in Visual Arts. The conference will be held on December 3rd – 4th in the premises of the Rectorate of the University of Arts in Belgrade and the Art Pavilion “Cvijeta Zuzorić”. Part of the program could be organized online, which depends on the epidemiological situation in the country.

The theme of the conference raises the issue of growing inequality in the art world, which is evident in the unequal development of art markets, lack of transparency of cash flows and various financial irregularities, precarious work and a high unemployment rate of artists, which are just some of the striking phenomena and ways in which contemporary art reproduces inequalities that can be seen in other areas of social action.

The program of the conference is designed as a place for meeting and exchange of various actors in the field of art – researchers, artists, curators, cultural managers and other cultural workers. Keynote lectures will be given by Victoria D. Alexander, professor of sociology and art management at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Dominique Willaert, artistic director of Victoria Deluxe, an organization that promotes community art in Ghent, Belgium.

We invite empirical, theoretical and practice-informed contributions from across a range of disciplines (art theory, cultural studies, cultural management, and cultural policy, sociology of art and economics of culture, and other related fields). Proposals could be in a form of individual or group papers, full panel presentations, testimonials, video presentations or poster sessions that should contribute to the consideration of the principles and models of decentralized (horizontal) management in visual arts; models based on equity, cooperative relationships and self-governance, ie. the implementation of direct democracy, which implies direct decision-making on all the common issues in the field of contemporary visual art.

Topics may include, but do not need to be confined to the following:

​• Defining and recognizing socially progressive models of organization and management in the field of contemporary visual arts based on the principles of equity, democracy, egalitarianism…;

• Case studies of successful and unsuccessful, historical and current examples of democratization of the field of contemporary visual arts;

• Achieving decentralization and democratic approach in the field of contemporary visual arts through cultural policy principles and bottom-up practices;

• Analysis of the impact that different organizational models can have on the position of the artist, the value and function of the work of art, the development of artistic production, encouraging citizens’ participation in cultural life and decision-making processes;

• Policies of participatory practices, collective work, and self-organization in other artistic fields and cultural practice.

Proposals should be submitted to anotherartworld@arts.bg.ac.rs no later than September 30th, 2020. Please find more information in the official call for proposals or on the website of the conference.