Archive for 2016

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[ecrea] Northern Light: Landscape Photography and Evocations of the North

Sat Mar 12 11:41:12 GMT 2016


CONFERENCE – Sheffield Hallam University – 4-5 July, 2016
Website: https://northernlight2016.wordpress.com/

CALL FOR PAPERS
Please submit a 300-word abstract to (c.t.goldie /at/ shu.ac.uk), to be received no later than 30 March, 2016. We aim to give you a response within three weeks of the final submission date. Offers of papers, 20 minutes in length, are requested from scholars, practitioners and from all relevant disciplines. The aim of the conference is to broaden our understanding of the Northern Landscape in photography, but critical approaches from history, geography, philosophy, as well as literary, cultural and visual studies will all be considered.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Within the tradition of western art there was a recognizable ‘Northern Renaissance’ and arguably there has always been something distinct about visual representations of the North and Northerness: a cool light, a subdued palette, explorations of human activity and land-use that are, perhaps, particular to northern regions. Some of these tendencies can also been seen in the photographic practice of the twentieth century; most notably in the restraint of New Objectivity and its influence on New Photography. However, in recent decades there has been a growing inclination to derive such photographic images not from material reality but, rather, to construct them from a conceptual idea.

If all landscape images are an abstraction – as Gerhard Richter has argued – a distillation, a reduction, always and necessarily a partial account of what is there (and this applies equally to maps and mental conceptions of land and landscape) – then this conference invites consideration of the limits of representation when applied to photographic evocations of the North and Northerness. Of particular interest are papers that consider the tensions within the notion of landscape photography as an art of record[ing]: as document or as imaginary; as actuality or encoded; the landscape perceived versus the landscape conceived.

Whilst most papers are likely to be concerned with contemporary photographic practice we are also interested in generating discussion around the historical development of landscape photography, its relationship to painting, for example, especially that of the Northern Renaissance and ideas on the Sublime. We would also consider discussions of the representation of Northern landscapes in literature, cinema and tv.

At the heart of this exploration is a line of enquiry that seeks to address the argument that there is an identifiable Northern landscape tradition, and to consider whether there are recognizable characteristics around which evocations of the North cohere: particular tendencies in terms of subject matter, approach or visual language. We are also interested in exploring ways in which global travel, including migration, has enriched or renegotiated the way the North is ‘seen’ and represented.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS - we are delighted to announce the following: Professor Liz Wells (University of Plymouth) will be giving the keynote paper – Professor Wells is author of Land Matters: Landscape Photography, Culture and Identity (2011); Simon Roberts will be speaking about his photography – for example work that he made in Russia during 2004/5 - published and exhibited as Motherland and Polyarnye Nochi (Polar Nights).

THEMES AND TOPICS FOR PAPERS
Papers may address but should not be necessarily confined to the following themes and topics –

· regional representations of the Northern Landscape – North Britain, Canada, the Arctic regions, Northern Europe, the Nordic countries, Siberia
·    diversity, distinctiveness and continuities; contrast and similarity
·    land, ice and water
·    seascapes and glaciers
·    expeditions and extremities
·    light, atmosphere, season, climate
·    adversity, violence, catastrophe
·    stillness and detachment
·    peopled, vernacular
·    man altered landscapes
·    landscape and the ‘Anthropocene’
·    land-use and agriculture
·    wilderness and the ‘natural’ landscape
·    the idealized
·    the Sublime
·    framing and the culture of seeing
·    the real
·    landscape photography as an art of record(ing)
·    New Objectivity, New Topographics, deadpan
·    the imagined
·    constructed, staged and encoded
·    the photographer as painter
·    the landscape as perceived, conceived and lived
·    insider and outsider
·    inhabited, familiar, known, observed
·    walking and lived experience
·    landscape process; time, change and movement
·    emotional and visceral responses
·    land and environment as politics
·    space and place
·    subject or setting
·    travel and exploration
·    landscape as amenity; tourism, leisure, beauty spots and view points
·    as ‘back-drop’ for outdoor pursuits: extreme sports
· contemporary practice as well as the historical development of landscape photography · the relationship to painting, to the Northern Renaissance, and to the Sublime
·    Abstraction, distillation, mapping and the limits of representation

SEND 300-word abstract to: (c.t.goldie /at/ shu.ac.uk)


CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
Full two-day conference – £60
Day tickets – £30
Students - £20 for full conference, £10 for one day;
Senior Citizens - £20 for full conference, £10 for one day;
Unwaged rate - £10 for the full conference

Registration  : https://northernlight.eventbrite.co.uk
                      https://northernlight2016.wordpress.com/


Please address enquiries to:
Darcy White,
Principal Lecturer in Visual Culture, FHEA Sheffield Hallam University UK (D.White /at/ shu.ac.uk)

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