[ecrea] CFP: 'After Chantal: the Legacy of Chantal Akerman', a conference at the University of Westminster

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

*AFTER CHANTAL*: An International Conference
The Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) at the 
University of Westminster is pleased to announce a two-day conference 
that will celebrate and critically explore the work and legacy of 
Chantal Akerman. The event will mark the anniversary of the filmmaker’s 
death and also of the UK’s first retrospective exhibition of her 
installation work at Ambika P3, University of Westminster, which opened 
in October 2015. We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers. Themes are 
outlined in the concept note below.

*Conference Dates:  Friday 4th November (4pm) - Sunday 6th November 2016*
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*Conference Venue: *University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, 
London, W1B 2UW, and 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS

*Confirmed Keynotes *and* Invited Speakers* include *Janet Bergstrom 
*(UCLA), *Sandy Flitterman-Lewis *(Rutgers University), *Dominique 
Paini*, (Paris), *Griselda Pollock* (University of Leeds), *Adam 
Roberts* (A Nos Amours) and *Corinnne Rondeau *(University of Nimes).

*Abstract Deadline: Monday 19th September*
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*Registration opens: Monday 3rd October*
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*Conference Themes*
/“When you try to show reality in cinema, most of the time it’s totally 
false. But when you show what’s going on in people’s minds that’s very 
cinematic.” /Chantal Akerman, 2015.

The Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM) is 
hosting a two-day conference to critically explore the legacy and 
implications of Akerman’s work. Akerman contributed greatly to 
challenging the perceptions of film and cinema. Her work explored themes 
that included the everyday, domestic labour, psychoanalysis, migration 
and displacement.  She is seen as a pioneer in embracing the gallery 
space as a filmmaker and she contributed to the expanded cinematic form, 
experimenting with reflexivity, cinematic time and the frame. She worked 
across countries, sites and cultures as well as pre-defined conceptual, 
epistemological or political categories. Her method of working was 
distinctive in its blurring margins and crossing genres. She refused to 
be identified as any single ‘type’ of filmmaker, whilst contributing 
greatly to our contemporary understanding of film.

Participants are invited to critically explore both how Akerman 
disrupted the polemics of art and cinema and the lasting effects of her 
work. Papers can address Akerman’s work directly or explore work 
influenced by her under the following themes:


*1**After Chantal: Nomadic Making and Resistance*

/‘I always resist definitions. It creates fences.’/  Chantal Akerman, 2015.

Constant movement accentuated Akerman’s identity as an artist. She moved 
across physical locations, amongst disparate genres and subjects, and 
between high culture and low culture. Her nomadic approach to making 
produced her most successful films and numerous ventures, including 
television shorts, comedies, musicals and a vast body of installation 
work. Her methods relied on self-reflection, re-invention and a 
willingness to fail. She disrupted expectations and the notion of a 
fixed identity as an artist. How do we situate the mobile 
artist/filmmaker? How does nomadic thinking support a practice of 
constant reinvention and at what cost?

Topics can include:

-Nomadic subversion, representation and identity

-High theory and low theory, high culture and low culture

-Unexpected encounters in filmmaking

-Risk and the value of failure

*2**After Chantal: Fiction and Documentary***
/‘It is certainly interesting to mix fiction and documentary, it's a 
good thing/.’ Chantal Akerman, 2015.

The factual character of film is its inherent index of reality, yet 
there are intriguing borders between fiction, documentary and actuality. 
Akerman fused non-fiction and fiction, at times replacing one with the 
other. Her work requests us to rethink how we negotiate these borders. 
How is reality shaped through film? In what ways can fiction and truth 
become narrative or documentary? Are there new ways of showing/viewing 
the everyday in and beyond existing film categories?

Topics can include:

-Fiction as method

-Narrative in documentary and fiction

-The everyday

-The politics of /truth/

*3**After Chantal: Film as Installation*
/‘Yes, so there is a big difference between cinema and works in 
galleries. When it is an installation, which is rarely narrative, every 
moment of the work should grab you, and cause you to stay. Time is no 
longer decided by the stage director but by the public.’ /Chantal 
Akerman, 2015.

Akerman’s installation work has helped to rethink the role of film as 
installation. This session will approach video and film installation in 
relation to space, the curated exhibition, performativity and 
counterculture. Can film installation move us to new ways of thinking 
about space and art? What is the interaction between space, narrative 
and audience?

Topics can include:

-The cinematic turn in contemporary art

-Narrative and installation

-Film as intervention

-Spectator, time and space

*4**After Chantal: Legacy*
/‘As for experimental cinema, I do not know where to find it.’ /Chantal 
Akerman, 2015.

Experimental cinema is today a fragmented practice located in a variety 
of contexts. We invite presenters to explore the idea of legacy through 
work influenced by Akerman. We invite presentations of projects and 
practices that continue her work of challenging perceptions of film and 
video today, as display, process or medium. Where does Akerman’s 
influence currently exist and how can it be manifested in the future?

*Deadline for Abstracts*

We welcome proposals for papers of a maximum of 20 minutes addressing 
any one of the above themes. Please send abstracts of no more than 250 
words.These should include the presenter's name, affiliation, email and 
postal address, together with the title of the paper and a 150-word 
biographical note on the presenter. Abstracts should be sent to Michael 
Maziere at (M.Maziere /at/ westminster.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(M.Maziere /at/ westminster.ac.uk)>and arrive no later than *Monday 19 
September 2016. *

*Programme and Registration *

This conference will take place from 4.00pm on Friday 4 November to late 
afternoon Sunday 6 November 2016.Registration will open in October 2016.

*Conference Team*

Michael Maziere, Rosie Thomas, May Ingawanij, Treasa O’Brien, Aislinn White.

Conference administrator: Karen Foster.

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