Agents in the Anthropocene: Trans/Disciplinary Practices in Art and Design Education Today

Call for Presentations
Deadline: 16 December 2016
Occurs: 26-28 January 2017
Piet Zwart Institute | Rotterdam, NL

The Anthropocene is both a widely acknowledged and fiercely debated term for a new geological era caused by humankind’s destructive influence on the planet. A growing number of exhibitions and publications are studying the intersection of the so-called Anthropocene with artistic and cultural practices. Often they advocate for modes of trans-disciplinary research that incorporate visual, cultural, artistic, technological, architectural, ecological and political categories. There seems to be an urge for a new kind of aesthetics for narrating the contemporary global reality—whether measured by a scientist or framed by an artist, or collaboratively developed by both of them. This collaborative narration transforms separate creative disciplines into a new multi-disciplinary field, whose future appearance remains speculative. 

Is there an urge for ‘new mental equipment’ that will allow us to imagine the Human-Nature partnership differently? There is certainly growing engagement and activism among artists and designers—a motivation to work together as collectives within cooperative projects, laboratory research settings and the like. What can we learn from these new modes of operation and trans-disciplinary research?  How are artists and designers able to act? How do we educate them in the face of the ‘Anthropocene’? What repercussions might these kinds of discussions even have for secondary art education? Or, how do we imagine ourselves as environmental humanities?

In addition to keynote presentations and brainstorm sessions, we would like to open up the symposium to presentations of exemplary practices and research from students, tutors, artists, designers, scientists, collectives and et cetera. We gladly invite anyone interested in the topic of the symposium to participate and to submit a project or paper proposal before the 16th of December (this can be theoretical research, journalistic investigation, an artistic or design experiment, or an educational programme).

Image Credit: Gilberto Esparza, Plantas Autofotosintéticas (Autophotosynthetic Plants), 2015, Phytonucleum Electricus Cella, Installation, Variable Dimensions, (Courtesy of Gilberto Esparza).