15 August 2017
'For me, there is no gap between my painting and my so-called 'decorative' work. I never considered the 'minor arts' to be artistically frustrating; on the contrary, it was an extension of my art'. (Sonia Delaunay)
3-4 November 2017
Queen Mary, University of London
Decorating Dissidence takes an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to the work of female artists, designers, and writers to reassess the place of domestic art, craft, and the decorative in modernism. Building on recent scholarship and exhibitions that have highlighted the work of women such as Sonia Delauney, Eileen Grey, Hannah Höch, and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, this conference offers new approaches to marginalised female modernists and their intermedia art practice. It invites discussion of the ways that modernist experimentation with domestic arts and the decorative influence contemporary art; it is interested in exploring the political, aesthetic, conceptual and material qualities of craft and the decorative in modernism's longue durée. We are reminded of: the negative space in Kara Walker's paper cuttings, the embroidered experience of Agnes Richter's jacket, narrative threads woven by Faith Ringgold and set designs by Es Devlin…
Bringing together different perspectives on the intersections between modernist female craft, domestic arts, visual arts, and literature, this conference will have a broad impact on contemporary modernist studies. As the conference seeks to redefine the spatial and temporal boundaries of modernism, we particularly encourage papers that address non-European modernists and intersectional speakers in relation to dissident craft-making from across the C20th and C21st.
Topics could include, but are not limited to:
- Fashioning & refashioning the self
- Weaving text(iles)
- Craft as political protest
- Women of the Bauhaus
- Craft as self-care
- The Interwar Period/'Domestic Modernism'
- Functional decoration
- Costuming
- Modernist makers and modernist objects
- Little Magazines/DIY publishing/Zine-making
- Decorative texts
- Queer crafting
- Recrafting/redrafting
- Craft collaborations
- Domestic interiors/interior design
- Socialism & craft
- Representations of craft in novels
- Intertextual Relationships
CfP closes 8 September 2017. Individual papers should be 20 minutes in length. Please submit abstracts of 300-500 words and a short bio to: decoratingdissidence@gmail.com.
Further Information
Refreshments and lunch will be provided, with a wine reception to end. We anticipate our exhibition element of the conference to run 2-4 November 2017, with time built into the conference to visit the gallery.
The registration fee for the two days will be £10; however, if this presents any issues to your attendance please do not hesitate to contact us.
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