22nd and 23rd June 2017 | Plymouth University
This two-day symposium will offer an insight into artistic practices that engage with concepts of territories within contemporary culture.
Possession is a necessary condition when space is framed as ‘territory’, whereas landscape may be considered in purely aesthetic terms. When landscape is territory, we can think of a ‘territorial gaze’, a possessive look of privilege, of ownership, of control, with an implied need to defend or conquer that bounded space. Territory, therefore, is always political, a situation of power relations.
Territorial claims are the source of multiple conflicts globally in the twenty-first century and the cause of population displacement, exacerbated by environmental and climatic challenges: rivalries over national and intra-state boundaries are a major cause of disputes; minorities within a nation or sovereign state may stake claims for independence, against the wishes of the controlling power; at a local level, issues of territorial ownership occur amongst neighbours, between humans and non-human animals, and within and across species. The edgelands that may exist between the lines that mark territorial spaces are also of interest, as these create a liminal zone within borders, offering potentialities for exploration and hybridity.
In choosing this theme for our 2017 Land/Water and the Visual Arts symposium, we offer a critical space for sharing perspectives and experiences as creative practitioners and interdisciplinary researchers, in order to explore notions of ‘territories’ and what this might mean for us.
Bookings are being taken now through the Plymouth University estore.