Symposium: Audio-visual Media and the Global Dream Space
When:
—
Venue:
External
04 June 2026
Link For Day Two: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event/62672/symposium-audio-visual-media-and-the-global-dream-space
The The Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL) and the Centre for Visual Anthropology, Goldsmiths are pleased to host this symposium charting the audio-visual production which, from the mid-twentieth century, constituted a key site for creating, circulating and debating ideas about an emerging and increasingly interconnected world space.
ABOUT THE EVENT
From the mid-twentieth century, audio-visual media constituted a key site for creating, circulating and debating ideas about an emerging and increasingly interconnected world space. Liberation movements, civil society actors and international organisations such as the United Nations appealed to contested signifiers such as “peace” and “freedom” as they pursued contradictory modernising agendas, ranging from anticolonial worldmaking to liberal-capitalist internationalism and imperial domination. Drawing on and expanding Anna Tsing’s concept, this symposium seeks to chart the audio-visual production and mediation of the “global dream space” that emerged from this historical process.
In the present day, the sizeable archive of this contested “global dream space” is little-known and institutionally and geographically dispersed, but it is also attracting increasing interest in the academic, archival and creative communities. In the face of planetary permacrisis and a collective urgency to imagine new forms of worldmaking, this event seeks to take stock of and analyse the audio-visual project of this global space from multiple perspectives. Through a variety of formats (papers, workshops and screening sessions), participants will place a particular emphasis on presenting diverse audio-visual materials including films, videos, filmstrips, photographs, and television and radio programmes.
The symposium is organised by David Wood (University College London/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and Miguel Errazu (Goldsmiths, University of London) with the support of the UK Research & Innovation “Horizon Europe Guarantee” programme (EP/Z001919/1 and EP/Y015088/1), Centre for Visual Anthropology of Goldsmiths, University of London and SELCS-CMII/Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London.
9:30h - 10:00h — Arrival and registration
10:00h - 10:15h — Opening remarks and thanks
10:15h- 11:45h — Session 1: Peace, Human Rights and Post-colonial Consciousness (panel)
The Filmstrips of UN and UNESCO on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Suzanne Langlois (York University, Toronto)
A Paradigm of Possibilities: the Filmstrip in Post-War Education
Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal (University of St. Andrews)
Post-Revolutionary Palestinian Film and Selective Institutional Memory in the Global Dream Space. Afterlives in the Post-Oslo “Peace Process” Framework
Carlos Navarro González (Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale)
11:45h - 12:15h — Coffee Break
12:15h - 13:45h — Session 2: Interrogating Archives of Development and Technical Assistance (panel)
Seeing and Unseeing like a State: Configuring Indian Women in Official Films
Ritika Kaushik (University of Warwick)
Photography at the International Labour Organization, 1950-1970
Darren Newbury (University of Brighton)
New Approaches to Media, Gender, and Development
Dalila Missero (Lancaster University), Masha Salazkina (Concordia University)
13:45h - 15:00h — Lunch Break
15:00h - 16:00h — Session 3: Development as Dream and Genre: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (workshop)
With: Myka Tucker-Abramson (University of Warwick), Peter Sutoris (University of Leeds), Christine Okoth (KCL), Molly Geidel (Dartmouth College)
16:00h - 16:30h — Coffee Break
16:30h - 18:30h — Session 4: Audio-Visual Imaginaries of Liberal World-Making (screening session)
Broadcasting Developmentalism: UNESCO and Educational Television in 1960s West Africa
Jennifer Blaylock (Rowan University)
Constructing the Modern World: The World Bank and Infrastructure Cinema
Zoë Druick (Simon Fraser University)
Open Press Policy and Diplomacy: Media Coverage During the Secretary-Generalship of Dag Hammarskjöld
Marina Dahlquist (Stockholm University)
Contact name: Matthew Barrington
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