[Commlist] CFP for ViCTOR-E Conference "The Reconstruction of Post-World-War II Europe through the Visual Arts"

Call for papers
Conference in Paris / 20-21-22 April 2022

"The Reconstruction of Post-World-War II Europe through the Visual Arts"


Having survived World War II and the bombings of the Liberation gave a 
new impulse to a whole post-war generation. The innovative modernity of 
the architects who rebuilt the destroyed cities, the commitment of the 
construction workers who worked in perilous conditions, and the 
establishment of new, temporary peaceful diplomatic relations inspired a 
rich visual and artistic production.

Organized in the framework of the research project Visual Culture of 
Trauma, Obliteration, and Reconstruction in Post-World-War II Europe 
(www.victor-e.eu), this conference will bring together the viewpoints of 
historians, visual sociologists, and historians of art, cinema, 
architecture, photography, painting and other related visual media on 
the period of Reconstruction following the Second World War in Europe. 
The research on the challenges of the post-war period, which began in 
the 1980s, has been fruitful but is only including visual sources since 
the 2000s. The increased digitization of archival collections, in 
particular iconographic and audiovisual holdings, encourages the 
exploration of the Reconstruction period through the rediscovery of 
these new objects.

While the research carried out within the framework of the ViCTOR-E 
project has mainly focused on non-fiction cinema (documentaries, 
newsreels, and amateur films produced after 1944), the conference aims 
to emphasize the integration of this cinematographic corpus into an 
extended visual arts ensemble. By examining the repetition of patterns 
and the circulation of aesthetic representations between cinema, 
photography, architecture, painting, design, and comics, it will explore 
the correspondences and influences that were developed between these 
different artistic expressions during the key period of the mid-20th 
century and which can be still found in the contemporary visual culture.

Moreover, despite the dynamism of the research and promotion activities 
undertaken, the Reconstruction is most often considered in its regional 
or even local dimension, through the prism of cities or monuments 
presented as emblematic of the scope of the work carried out. The 
conference proposes to vary these scales by bringing to light the 
transnational links which - although more difficult to grasp - also 
strongly influence the post-war transformations. These transnational 
exchanges, whether in the form of architectural influences, assistance 
from international organizations, or reports and travels abroad, 
contributed to the rebuilding of destroyed cities, while sometimes 
initiating longer-term collaborations.

This double exploration of the transdisciplinary and transnational 
dimensions of the Reconstruction will be the main theme of the 
conference. Proposals for communications may be submitted under the 
following themes:

-       The circulation of a pattern (ruins, new infrastructures, modern 
housing, etc.) or a place (a city, a monument, a public space) through 
several artistic forms;
-       The transnational dimension of the Reconstruction: international 
events (festivals, exhibitions, meetings), supranational institutions 
(UNESCO, UNRRA, etc.), political and cultural exchanges between 
different countries;
-       The individual trajectories of the figures who acted as 
intermediaries between the different arts and fields (collaborations 
between architects and photographers, between engineers and filmmakers, 
etc.);
-       The role of visual arts and production in dealing with, or 
instead in concealing, the traumatic heritage of the war;
-       The long period of the Reconstruction, on the one hand through 
the question of contemporary uses of the archives of the Reconstruction, 
and on the other hand through the overlapping of the issues of the 
Reconstruction with those of the second half of the 20th century (in 
particular the beginnings of the cold war and the decolonization).
This conference will be the final public event organized by the ViCTOR-E 
project. Its team members will have the great pleasure to introduce the 
virtual exhibition created by the Czech, French, German, and Italian 
units, together with the European Film Gateway.

Please send your abstracts (200 words, short bio) in English or French 
to: (victore.conference /at/ gmail.com)

Schedule:
Deadline for abstracts: November 15th, 2021
Acceptance announcement: November 30th, 2021
Dates of the conference: from April 20th to April 22nd, 2022

Place of the conference: Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA), 2 
rue Vivienne 75002 Paris

The conference will take place in English and French.

Main organizer:
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
in cooperation with
Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
Institute for Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences
Università degli Studi di Udine
European Film Gateway

The project VICTOR-E is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research 
Programme (www.heranet.info) which is co-funded by BMBF via DLR-PT, CAS, 
ANR, MIUR and the European Commission through Horizon 2020.


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