Monthly Archives: April 2017

CALL FOR PAPER: Heritage and Democracy

On behalf of ICOMOS India and the Scientific Committee for the Symposium, ICOMOS has the pleasure of presenting the call for papers and proposals for the Scientific Symposium which will take place in Delhi, India, on the occasion of the 19th ICOMOS General Assembly, from 11 to 15 December 2017 (the exact dates of the Scientific Symposium are from 12 to 15 December 2017).

The theme of the Scientific Symposium is “Heritage and Democracy” with the following subthemes:

ST01: Integrating Heritage and Sustainable Urban Development by engaging diverse Communities for Heritage Management
ST02: The Role of Cultural Heritage in Building Peace & Reconciliation
ST03: Protecting and Interpreting Cultural Heritage in the Age of Digital Empowerment
ST04: Culture-Nature Journey, Exploring the Complexities of Human Relationships with Natural and Cultural Places

The call for papers for subthemes ST01, ST02 and ST03 is available on the official website of the 19th ICOMOS General Assembly and Scientific Symposium: http://icomosga2017.org/call-for-papers/

In addition to the call for papers, a call for proposals is launched for subtheme ST04 of the Scientific Symposium, the Culture-Nature Journey. ICOMOS and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), with a growing group of our members and partners, will build on the success of the Nature-Culture Journey at the IUCN World Conservatio Congress in Hawai’i in September 2016 and invite the submission of proposals of sessions in various formats (knowledge cafés, workshops, kiosks, etc.) to address the interconnected character of cultural and natural heritage.

The call for proposals is also available on the official website of the 19th ICOMOS General Assembly and Scientific Symposium: http://icomosga2017.org/call-for-proposals/

Deadline for abstracts: 1 April 2017 – Extended deadline 30 April 2017
Deadline for proposals for the Culture-Nature Journey: 30 April 2017

Registration for the 19th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium is on the official GA website: http://icomosga2017.org/

We look forward to receiving your submissions for what promises to be an interesting conference.

CALL FOR PAPER: Identities and the Cities: Urban Transformations, Transition and Change in Urban Image Construction

As part of the 6th Euroacademia International Conference
‘Identities and Identifications: Politicized Uses of Collective Identities’
Florence, Italy, 22 – 23 June 2017

Deadline: 10th of May 2017

Panel Description:

Urban image construction is a reflection, expression and constitutive factor of local identity formation and dynamics. Cities simultaneously localize identities and connect them with wider global signs of utility, function and symbolic order. Elasticity of the label identity accommodates everything that surrounds us as presence or absence, persistence or change. As a theatrical scenery, cities change after each act, sometimes with discrete adaptations, sometimes with radical interventions. If the scenery is composed of streets, parks, roads, museums, monuments, shopping malls and buildings connected through the intricate network of the perpetual and cumulative actions of its inhabitants, every adaptation and intervention affects its multi-dimensional identities. Changes in urban visual identities unfold as a form of public art feeding from the immense potential of social imaginary significations accommodated by a time’s perception of stability, structure and continuity. Urban change is itself a production of meaning, interpretation and identity making practices.

As the chaotic canvases of cities are being stretched over a framework of identity, its further exploration seems more than appropriate. Amidst the incredibly rapid urban growth crowding more than half of the world population in towns and cities, the questions are only going to keep multiplying. How are city identities made and re-made, used and abused, imagined and narrated, politicised and communicated, expressed and projected, imposed and marketed? And above all, how do they thrive within the dynamic interpolation of the nexus of local-global, centre-periphery, urban – suburban, old and new. As out-dated as these dichotomies may sound, in many places their daily life is far from over. As old cities became new capitals and new capitals struggle for more capital, the challenges of maintaining public-driven collective identities in the face of cultural fragmentation and diversification, coupled with consumer-attractiveness is turning them into urban palimpsests. Urban environments reflect the human needs and values. In an increasingly globalized world, the human beings are becoming more citizens of the world than citizens of the cities. The increasing mobility of the new pilgrims of globalization creates more of the same in the logic of universalized urban functionality. Within this logic, the cities are now in the position to re-evaluate their impact on the world and shape their future in a manner that assumes a wider responsibility that evades a localized mentality. Urban local identities are becoming increasingly thin and rely strongly on negotiating a local specificity with universalized functionality and global responsibility. An increasing need for uniqueness and distinctiveness foster site-specificity aimed at placing a particular urban identity within a global economic hierarchy. Public art became essential for affirming distinctive local urban identities in a universe of serialization and commodification.

As the research on cultural identities of the city is becoming more abundant, this panel aims at adopting a wide-lens inter-disciplinary approach, while focusing on various processes affecting identities in the urban context in its global-regional-national-local interplay.

Some example of topics may include (but are not limited to):

•       Collective Memory, Identity and Urban Image Construction
•       Appropriation, Instrumentalisation and Functualisation of Public Spaces
•       Contemporary Nomadism and the City as a Common Denominator for Collective Identities
•       Architecture as ‘Politics with Bricks and Mortar’
•       History, Heritage and Urban Change
•       Urban Regeneration Projects, Landmark Buildings and ‘Starchitects’
•       Non-Places and (Non)Identity
•       Immigrants and the Cultural Identity of Cities
•       City Marketing and City Branding
•       Cities and Public Goods
•       European Capitals of Culture and European Identity
•       Cities and Sites of Memorialisation
•       Identity Creation and the Cultural Offer of the City
•       Urban Cultural Heritage as Identity-Anchor
•       Minor Places: Dominant Culture and Site-Specific Urban Identities
•       Creative Changes of the Cities
•       Art and Industry in Urban Development
•       Urban Aesthetics
•       Urban Installations
•       Critical Architecture
•       Urbanism and Social Intervention: Inclusion of the Marginalized
•       Centre/Periphery Nexuses in Contemporary Urban Development
•       Cities and the Quality of Life
•       Urban Landscapes and Sustainable Cities
•       Contemporary Cities and Environmental Responsibility
•       Ugliness, Kitsch and Value in Shaping Contemporary Urban Spaces
•       Urban Sites of Identification
•       Temporary Urban Interventions
•       Architecture as Public Art

If interested in participating, please read the complete event details on the conference website and apply on-line. Alternatively you can send a maximum 300 words abstract together with the details of your affiliation until 10th of May 2017 by e-mail at application@euroacademia.org

For full details of the conference and on-line application please see:
http://euroacademia.eu/conference/6th-conference-identities-and-identifications/

CALL FOR PAPER: The Sustainability & Resilience Of Cities: Infrastructures, Communities & Architectures

CONSTRUCTING  AN  URBAN  FUTURE : 

 THE    SUSTAINABILITY    AND    RESILIENCE   OF   CITIES – INFRASTRUCTURES, COMMUNITIES AND ARCHITECTURES

Dates:  March 18-19, 2018
Place: Abu Dhabi University
Abstract Submissions: December 01, 2017

Abstract Submission Form ADU

This conference brings together academics from across the world around the issues of sustainability and resilience in cities. It is multi-disciplinary and invites architects, planners, engineers and urban designers. It also welcomes geographers, sociologists, urban economists, housing specialists, and more.

The reason for bringing these disciplines together around the sustainability and resilience of cities is simple: we cannot solve problems in isolation.

See more details here…

CALL FOR PAPER: Institute of Place Management 4th International Biennial Conference

Call for Papers: Inclusive Placemaking

7th – 8th September 2017, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester UK

Special Stream: Museums & Places*

Conference Chairs: Dr Ares Kalandides, Dr Steve Millington and Professor Cathy Parker

The repercussions of the 2008 global financial crisis continue to reverberate across the world, presenting major challenges to local development. In many places, after decades of regeneration, the money has simply run out. This is an era of austerity, but one where responsibility for prosperity (or failure) is being devolved and localised through current political agendas. This coincides with calls to take back control, both in the UK and USA. However, the local capacity to transform places, to tackle serious issues such as income inequality and climate change is severely over-estimated, and brings into question the future of the current economic development mantra, inclusive growth.

Despite these broad economic and political uncertainties, places continue to evolve. In the absence of public or private funding there is a greater emphasis on communities to self-organise, through ordinary and neighbourhood placemaking. The stories of how people in places support the arts, the local heritage, the vulnerable, the young and the old can be an inspirational example of creativity and compassion. Nevertheless, the organisers of food banks, free after-school clubs, community litter-picks, and all the other people who attend neighbourhood gardens, produce local festivals and events, are under-resourced, under-supported, and under-valued.

In this context, we want to understand more about placemaking as a participatory and inclusive practice, which connects individuals into networks of place-based action and results in the context of austerity, devolution, and local responsibility. We are also interested in moving beyond the silos of academics disciplines or professional interventions, to consider the connection between business, community and policy.

We suggest papers might address the following themes:

  • Collective practices of solidarity in an era of austerity
  • Gender and placemaking
  • Creativity and placemaking, as a tool of engagement and transforming place identity
  • Landscape and placemaking
  • Case studies exploring the impact of inclusive placemaking
  • Civic and community-led initiatives
  • The personal motivations, vulnerabilities and achievements of placemakers
  • The practicalities involved in delivering and overcoming barriers to effective placemaking
  • Arts and placemaking
  • The relationship between tourism and placemaking
  • Inclusive models of place management and governance
  • Case studies examining community empowerment at a grassroots level
  • Placemaking for degrowth
  • The communication of place-based narratives in placemaking and place marketing/branding
  • The role and value of small-scale events and festivals
  • Business as actors in local communities
  • Conceptual and ontological issues of placemaking
  • Placemaking and the law
  • The role of digital and social media in placemaking

Deadline for abstracts by 5pm, Wednesday 31st May, 2017

Please submit 500-1000 word abstracts to: Gareth Roberts

CALL FOR PAPER: International Congress on Construction History (6ICCH)

The 6th International Congress on Construction History (6ICCH) will be organised in Brussels, from July 9 to July 13, 2018. For the first time, thematic sessions as well as the usual open sessions will be organised. Therefore, a two-step procedure is adopted: the call for thematic sessions is launched first, followed by the general call for abstracts. The general call for abstracts will invite contributions for the special thematic sessions as well as contributions dealing with a broad range of construction history topics (typology, the action of building, knowledge transfer, process and actors, materials, services, etc.). With this combination, the organisers aim at both a broad and an in-depth assessment of new research in construction history.

The present call invites prospective session chairs to suggest topics for the thematic sessions. Their aim is to highlight explicitly the latest themes, approaches and directions in construction history research, and to foster transnational and interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion on burning issues. Proposals should include a description of the theme (max. 400 words), a motivation of the relevance of the theme (max. 400 words) and a CV of the applicant chair demonstrating his/her relevant expertise. The organising committee will select up to 12 thematic sessions, limited to one per applicant.

Chairs of the thematic sessions are expected to be present at the 6ICCH and give a short introduction to their session. They are, in collaboration with the scientific committee, responsible for the selection process of the submitted abstracts and for the editing process of the submitted papers. For each session 4 to 5 papers will be selected. No more than one paper of the chair’s research team can be selected. The scientific committee reserves for itself the right to redirect papers towards other thematic or open sessions.

Proposals should be sent to info@6icch.org by April 1 2017. Session chairs will be informed about the selection of their proposal by the organising committee by May 1 2017.