Call for Papers: Tangible – Intangible Heritage(S) – Design, Social And Cultural Critiques On The Past, Present And The Future. London, 14–15 June 2018
This conference calls upon art and architectural historians, sociologists, cultural theorists, architects, planners, urban designers, to critique the urban conditions of the past with a view to informing the present.
Sample of themes: contemporary architecture and modes of production | emerging forms in city planning | social and political history of urbanisation globally | representations of ‘the city’ in art | historic architecture as social text.
In a time when the construction of New Towns is on the agenda in UK; when climate change threatens historic cities and landscapes in Asia; when the cultural industries turn our art and architectural history into economic models of development; when entire cities are being built from scratch across rural China; and socio-economic change is destroying industrial communities leaving people in the West in search for answers from politicians like of Donald Trump, what can we mean by ‘heritage’?
This conference suggests we cannot think of heritage in reductive terms, neither as isolated objects or images nor as a purely historic phenomenon. The decisions we take about this ‘heritage’ today are not only based on the past, they will inform the future.
In redefining heritage as a historic, artistic, design, media, social, political, and economic issue, this conference attempts to open up the concept to a reading that is interdisciplinary. In questioning these relationships over time, it seeks to understand the past in light of the present and identify creative ways of operating in a globalised future.
The conference seeks to explore definitions of ‘heritage’ by considering it from various angles: physical form, artistic formulation, political tool, social and media construct, economic reification and digital innovation. As a result, the conference welcomes presentations from specialists from multiple fields whose work overlaps with issues of heritage broadly defined: art historians, conservationists, architects, urban designers, cultural theorists, sociologists, artists, media and press historians, planners and more.
The conference welcomes case studies; design proposals, research projects, investigative papers and theoretical considerations in various formats allowing people to attend in person, present virtually or have presentations permanently available via the AMPS Youtube channel:
Pre-recorded video (20 minutes), Skype (20 minutes), Conference Presentations (20 minutes), Written Papers (3,000 words) *
* After review selected authors will be invited to extend their initial 3000 words paper to full book chapter or journal article length.
Abstracts submission deadline 5 April 2018.
The full call for papers is accessible here.