CONF./CFP- Alternative Culture(s) and Urban Space, Budapest, 2-3 April 2009

Distrib. by: Central-Eurasia-L - Announcement List for Central Eurasian Studies

CONF./CFP- Alternative Culture(s) and Urban Space, Budapest, 2-3 April 2009

Posted by: Benjamin Cope <b.cope@zacheta.art.pl>

Please submit your paper proposal (theme and short description
ca.500-750 words) to the following address
(b.cope@zacheta.art.pl and/or bodo@mokk.bme.hu) not later then 1
February 2009.

Call for papers
"Alternative Culture(s) and Urban Space"

This conference, organized in cooperation with the International
Alternative Culture Center (IACC/NAKKA, Hungary) and the Laboratory of
Critical Urbanism (EHU, Lithuania) will be held 2-3 April 2009 in
Budapest, Hungary.

The conference seeks to take alternative culture in a wide sense to
invite a broad series of reflections on the way in which culture or
cultures impact on the space of cities or on the ways in which
city-space is used.

We understand alternative culture as that produced by all sorts of
cultural producers: from artists, musicians and event organizers to
bar-owners, drinkers, dancers, informal traders, dog-owners, the
homeless, etc. In addition, we understand alternative cultures as
including cultures neglected by the dominant national and media
discourses: that perhaps of the Jewish community disappeared from much
of Eastern Europe or of the migrants and/or exiles living and trading in
various markets in the region in constantly changing configurations, or
of sexual, gendered and class minorities. What can we learn from
considering the space of the cities in our region from the perspective
of these alternative cultures?

A major focus of our interest is on the possibilities of culture for
creating alternative spaces in an era when culture itself has become a
major part of the economies of contemporary cities. This is particularly
intriguing in relation to the cities of the post-communist zone, given
that the whole region is often connoted as itself being somehow
alternative. However, we are also interested in the way alternative
spaces function differently in changing historical periods: for
instance, the cartography, meaning and social impact of alternative
spaces in communist society might be very different from that of
contemporary societies, or alternative spaces might work differently in
Baku than in Prague. In addition, culture has been and is increasingly
used by urban researchers as both a tool and end-product of research:
urban researchers often hope their work can itself propose an
alternative; more community orientated urban culture in opposition to
the prevailing norms. We therefore envisage our seminar as moving
towards a reflection as to what strategies, both artistic and academic,
can be used in the post-communist region to impact on and explore the
alternative production and uses of space given the socio-economic
configurations of capitalism in which we function.

Organizers:

Benjamin Cope b.cope@zacheta.art.pl
Balazs Bodo bodo@mokk.bme.hu
Olga Zaslavskaya zaslavsk@ceu.hu

Please submit your paper proposal (theme and short description
ca.500-750 words) to the following address (b.cope@zacheta.art.pl
and/or bodo@mokk.bme.hu) not later then 1 February 2009.

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