ENTANGLED MILIEUS: Co-Constituting a Shared Futurity (slow, un-disciplined conference)

International Conference co-organized by the University of Cyprus (LUCY), Delft University of Technology (Borders & Territories Research Group) and the University of Sheffield. To be held in Cyprus, October 22 – 30, 2022.

If the previous conference ‘Mediating the Spatiality of Conflicts’ concluded that conflicts produce contested territories, and that the very locality within that territory can have a certain agency where forms of activation, types of actions and no-borders activisms might have emerged, the upcoming conference will investigate how architecture and landscape architecture as a material-discursive practice profoundly acts upon these thick surfaces and critical zones.

Where does the spatial-material understanding of the milieu situate itself within specific interactions, entanglements, networks or ‘relationscapes’? Does the produced ‘non-native land’ still allow for further appropriations? How does the manifestation of ongoing geo-political conflicts obscure or alter such relationscapes? Are the ‘soiled’ (material) and mediated (discursive) substances co-constitutive of milieus that transform and change according to day-to-day encounters? Are these still conducive to living conditions? How can we take into consideration non-human -or more-than-human- agents (animals, plants, machines, artificial intelligence, i.e.) with whom we share the milieu?

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION:

Deadline: 1 April 2022

a. Call for reports from the field

In an attempt to radically rethink the conventional idea of the academic conference, the organizers enrich the call for paper proposals, with a call for participation to share individual and collective cross-media works. Under the heading ‘reports from the field’, the organizers invite researchers, scholars, activists, practitioners and artists to formulate and develop inquiries into entangled milieus in Cyprus, in any format and modality they feel appropriate: journalistic reports, drawings, films, archival work, photographs, photographic essays, research reports, etc.

They should address the entangled spatial relationships between air, water and soil from the following three perspectives:

1. Natural resource-extraction
2. Food-production
3. Land-consumption

The organizers ask from the participants to describe their contribution and to specify from which of the three perspectives they depart from. The participants should also indicate whether they collaborate with partners based in Cyprus. Reports from the field from elsewhere, brought and compared to the context of Cyprus, are also welcome. No selection will take place, and no one will be excluded from the discussion.

Within the framework of the three perspectives, the organizers will run three milieu inquiries, in Cyprus. Depending on the content of the proposals, and the interest of the participants, the organizers will specify the milieu inquiries and their fields. Potential areas are: a. Skouriotissa / Lefke area regarding entangled milieus departing from natural resource extraction; b. the agriculture areas of Famagusta region both south and north of the UN cease fire zone regarding entangled milieus departing from food production; and c. the island’s coastal areas real estate development, both north and south of the divide, regarding entangled milieus departing from land consumption.

Part of the inquiry will be to formulate a critical stance of discursive practices in such contexts, towards a co-constitution of shared futurities. The work on the three fields of inquiry comprise the first part of the conference and will take place between the 22^nd and 28^th of October. The outcomes will be shared with the rest of the conference’s participants during the second part that will take place on October 29 and 30.

b. Call for papers

In addition to the call for ‘reports from the field’, the organizers invite scholars and participants who are interested in presenting an academic paper at the conference, to submit paper proposals that address the questions of ‘entangled milieus’ through a discussion of shared futurities. The nature of this ‘undisciplined’ conference specifically asks for contributions stemming from an abundance of different points of view, in an attempt to initiate a debate across disciplines, while also relating examples of practice with scholarly positions.

For submission details, authors’ guidelines, and all other inquiries about the conference and workshops, please contact the organizers through the conference email: entangledmilieus@gmail.com

More information and the full call can be found here.