Conventions of Proximity in Art, Theatre and Performance

Conventions of Proximity in Art, Theatre and Performance

Co-hosted by Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre and Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture, and supported by Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image.

Thursday 5 May | 13:00-18:00

Friday 6 May | 10:00-18:00

School of Arts, Birkbeck College, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

For the full programme

Immersive and curatorial strategies are highly current in contemporary theatre, visual art and exhibition culture – bringing audiences into close and often interactive relationships with artistic work. But how else do art, theatre and performance engage ideas of proximity, and how have they done so in the past?

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Conventions of Proximity in Art, Theatre and Performance investigates forms of nearness and distance from numerous perspectives: dramaturgical, curatorial, affective, social, conceptual, virtual, geographical. Over a day and a half, artists and writers will share their work on proximity as an idea and as a practice. From the early modern to the contemporary, in examples drawn from southeast Asia to the global north, the symposium explores proximity in relation to a diverse range of topics, including digital networks, architectural design, home, public space, cinema, loneliness, friendship, listening, darkness, museum display, and music.

Conventions of Proximity combines papers, workshops from guest artists in the School of Arts’ studio space, film screenings with ‘Proximity on Film: intimate experiments in closeness and distance in Birkbeck Cinema, performance installation, and an exhibition of contemporary art in the Peltz Gallery.

Thursday 5 May researchers and practitioners will share their work in parallel panel presentations, from which attenders can make a selection.

Friday 6 Mayfilm screenings, panel presentations, workshops and a performance installation will run in parallel, from which attenders can make a selection.

Contributors include:

Silke Arnold-de Simine (Birkbeck, University of London)

Maaike Bleeker (University of Utrecht)

Fiona Candlin (Birkbeck, University of London)

Fourthland

Sheila Ghelani

Alison Green (Central Saint Martins)

Peader Kirk & Teoma Jackson Naccarato

Nicholas Ridout (Queen Mary, University of London)

Victoria Walsh (Royal College of Art)

Conventions of Proximity is free of charge, but places are limited and booking is essential.

 

Image courtesy of Fourthland, ‘Back to Where We Have Not Quite Been’, photo-series, 2015