We are inviting proposals for papers discussing architectural sculpture in Britain from 1850 to 1914. These will be presented to a joint Victorian Society and Public Statues and Sculpture Association conference at the Art Workers’ Guild in London on Saturday 17 September 2022. The conference will be followed by guided walks around selected Victorian and Edwardian buildings in London on Sunday 18 September.

Abstracts and a brief c.v. of approximately 150 words each should be submitted to Joanna Barnes and Holly Trusted (co-chairs PSSA) atoffice@pssauk.org ASAP. 

Prague – Heritages

2023 marks the twentieth anniversary of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Heritage. It established culture as a concept to be safeguarded. That event came three decades after the World Heritage Convention. Through that, UNESCO had set up its World Heritage List of protect sites and buildings. The intervening years have seen multiple shifts in how we define heritage – as both material objects and social traditions. Today more than ever before, the distinction is blurred. The streets on which we live, the edifices we design and the monuments we protect are all connected to the lifestyles, traditions and social groupings we celebrate and safeguard.

What we mean by heritage today then, is an open and diverse question. Our buildings and environments, our cities and neighborhoods, our memorials and our artworks, our cultures and communities are all component parts of what we understand as ‘preservable’ history. The dynamics at play are however complex. Conserving architectural heritage can conflict with development models. Community traditions are threatened by globalization. Monuments are often focal points for cultural contestation. Archeological sites are valued in themselves and simultaneously erased by both the forces of conflict and ‘progress’.

However, the past and the present also overlap and mutually support. Placemaking sees built and cultural heritage as key to urban practice. Contextualization is central to planning laws. Museums are sites for communities and display. Heritage organsiations preserve buildings and educate the public. Galleries present historical art while debating meanings in contemporary terms.

Reflecting this scenario, this conference seeks papers on heritage from various standpoints: art and architecture historians concerned with preservation; architects and urban planners engaged with placemaking; cultural theorists and social historians documenting objects, places, people and events. Artists working with community and place. It welcomes case studies that are specific and place-based. It embraces theoretical frameworks that function globally. It is interested in variegated methods of research and analysis.

Although the event is international in its reach, it is also interested in the specifics of the Czech Republic. It stems from the Prague based project Then, Now and Always and uses its themes of museums and communities as a key strand. Other strands and themes are listed below and aim to bring in contributions from multiple fields.

Abstracts due: 10 July 2022

Abstracts – 1 July 2022

Event – 1-3 December 2022

More information

One century ago the City Symphony was at the cutting edge of visual representation. It was the site of some of the most challenging concepts and ideas the art world had ever seen. Its ruptures in spatiotemporal representation were seen as natural extensions of the avant-garde: cubist painting in the mode of Braque, the architectural visions of Vladimir Tatlin, the spatio-sculptural works of Aleksandr Rodchenko, the photography of Moholy-Nagy and later Florence Henri, to name but a few.

The intervening 100 years have seen periodic reengagements with spatial reframing in these media. They have also witnessed the emergence of new modes of representation in the worlds of art, design, heritage, cultural studies and the social sciences more broadly. Today, artists, architects, painters, sculptors and designers can work seamlessly across a plethora of fields: video, digital photography, 3D printing, parametric architecture, algorithmic animation, projection mapping, photogrammetry, virtual reality, and more.

If we look specifically at spatial design, virtual reality is increasingly seen as ‘everyday’ for architects and urban designers. For artists, ‘the digital’ is now a typical mode of operation. If we consider film, algorithmic video editing, motion capture and image digitalization are now all ‘run of the mill’ technologies. In museology, the experiential interactive installation accompanies static exhibitions. Indeed, the moving image, both analogue and digital, is now a standard area of historical study in itself – the city symphony included.

Taking the City Symphony, and its historic moment in time as a starting point, this conference seeks to explore of the past, present and future of how we visualise people, places, cities and life. It welcomes insights into the history of painting from a spatiotemporal standpoint; the influence and evolution of the photographic representation of place; the role of sculpture in exploring and integrating space. It invites filmmakers exploring city representation, architects, urban planners and designers engaged in the visualisation of buildings, cities…. and more.

Its welcomes contributions from across disciplines and its strands will be formed around contributions. Several themes are set in advance, including the areas of research interest to the partner institutions:

Queen’s University Belfast – Lived Space, Past and Present | Cape Peninsula University of Technology – Representing Space, Place, and Liminality | National University of Singapore – The Screen as Surface, Site and Space