The 9th Annual Concordia University Undergraduate Art History Conference draws on the concept of placemaking within contemporary landscapes, the conference, Place Listening : Exploring Material Narratives, aims to discuss the dynamic relationships between materiality, overlapping historical narratives, and involuntary memory to open a discourse for reconciliation. With a vast colonial history, material facets of everyday interactions in Turtle Island (Canada) can act as reminders and triggers of violent pasts. Power distribution are tied into notions of nationhood calling to mind the idea of a conditioned gaze that influence the way we move through space, and raises questions about the limitations of one’s mobility. As topics concerning immigration and citizenship become more prominent today, participants will be encouraged to think critically about the various power structures that continue to be at play within the art world and explore ways to challenge these narratives of exclusion.
The 8th Annual Concordia University Undergraduate Art History Conference—coordinated by undergraduates in the Department of Art History—provides a unique environment for Fine Arts undergraduate students to present their own research to the Concordia community, along with participants from universities across the world. Housed at Concordia University, this year’s conference, (dis)location: art in a mobile age, will take place on February 16th and 17th, 2019 at the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art. Our theme will focus on the role of ‘place’ in art and society, and what follows when bodies and objects are displaced.