Agenda

18 Jun 2025 15:00

FLUID GEOGRAPHIES. Reconsidering the Notion of Border in Contemporary Art

18 June: Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza, San Polo 2765/A, Calle Corner / 19 June: Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi (Campo San Samuele 3231)

18-19 June, 2025

Organized by 
Cristina Baldacci (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and Christina Hainzl (University for Continuing Education Krems),

in collaboration with
German Center for Venetian Studies, Palazzo Grassi – Pinault Collection Venezia and Lungomare

Borders do not exist but are dispositifs – to use a Foucaultian concept – politically conceived and geographically predetermined but also psychologically experienced or socially and culturally constructed. Borders do not have to divide; they can also connect. The border can be a place as well as a non-place of encounter and/or separation. Borders are fluid: they change through observation, movement and construction. Borders can both disappear and be broken.

People are constantly crossing borders, be it out of protest, a desire for power or because they are on the run. Sometimes we cross our inner boundaries and discuss the limits of what can be said. However, borders are also patterns of order, such as the delineation of epochs or metric measurements. Ideological borders change based on experience. Once established, borders also remain constant in our imagination and change through dreams. Artistic projects are just as often concerned with these transgressions.

Which borders do artists, curators and scholars come up against? How do they define and negotiate them? In line with these questions, the two-day conference deals with the topic of borders, especially from the perspective of photography and the moving image.

During the first day workshop, scholars and curators will exchange views on different ways of understanding borders, starting from their personal experience as cultural professionals. In doing so, participants will adopt theoretical-philosophical, technological-media and even ecological perspectives to explore the limits of photography and the moving image, and to highlight future challenges and trends. The second day will be dedicated to individual presentations of art projects and film screenings. The programme will focus on one hand on the political and social perceptions of borders and on the other, on rivers as liminal spaces from multiple perspectives.

At the end of the two days the book Venice, an Archipelago of Art and Ecologies (transcript, 2025), which delves into the fragile but resilient Venetian cultural ecosystem at the time of the climate crisis, will be presented and discussed by the editors and selected authors. The book stems from a collaboration between the research centres Zwischenräume (University for Continuing Education Krems) and NICHE (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice).

Programme attached. Please note: for the first session on 18 June, we invite you to reserve your seat as space is limited: rsvp@dszv.it

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Cristina Baldacci is associate professor of Contemporary Art History in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage (DFBC) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and principal investigator of the Ecological Art Practices research cluster at THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE). She is also an affiliated researcher at the Platform for Sustainable Development (SDGs), University for Continuing Education Krems.

Christina Hainzl is head of the transdisciplinary Research Lab Society in Transition at the University for Continuing Education Krems. She is also principal investigator in the research cluster Conflict and Visualization in Contemporary Art and affiliated researcher in the Ecological Art Practices research cluster at NICHE (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice). Christina studied art history and political communication.

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, University for Continuing Education Krems, NICHE, in collaboration with German Center for Venetian Studies, Palazzo Grassi – Pinault Collection Venezia and Lungomare

Downloads

Poster 1297 KB
Flyer 3962 KB

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