16TH DAC Theme

Art, Memory, History / Sining, Gunita, Kasaysayan

“Just as I once left the pinecone by the fence, I have since left my words on the door of so many people who were unknown to me, people in prison, or hunted, or alone.”

– Pablo Neruda, Nobel Laureate

This arts congress seeks to explore the intersections of art, memory, and history, and beyond that, to engage with the public audience and the communities the work of the scholars and artists. Questions we raise include: How does art serve as an expression of memory, or a repository of a people’s experiences? What practices and interventions are deployed by the humanities and social sciences to extend art to the public sphere?  How does art serve as a reactionary agent to nurture public memory, or question it, and convey the truth of history? How does art perform a historiographic function in tearing the mats of silences in histories and in fashioning alternate weaves of motifs and narratives that make truer and distinctive the heritage and values of a people, of a nation, of the world? How can memories be preserved and archived in the twenty-first century, and assume a public role?

Subthemes:

Art and public celebration

Art and public mourning

Art and social justice: race, gender, class, ethnicity, environment, ableism, ageism

Art as testimony of violence and oppression

Art collectives: survivors, support, activism

Art, engagement, reconciliation

Art, memory, mobilities

Art, museum, and the public landscape

Art therapy and illness

Art, trauma, engagement

Archiving art and memory

Ethics of art and public engagement

Narratives of human rights

Performing spirituality through collective art

Politics of art production and the formation of knowledge

Public humanities: Critical imagination and the community

Questions of collective memory, collective history

Teaching public art

Work of art in the age of digital technology

Activities