Archipelagic Encounters symposium

Thinking archipelagically from the Carribean, Édouard Glissant noted that “each island embodies openness. The dialectic between inside and outside is reflected in the relationship of land and sea.” Similarly, Epeli Hau’ofa considered the Pacific an oceanic continent punctuated by dynamic island homelands, with fluid genealogies to the migration of the Austronesian peoples from Southeast Asia into and across the Southern hemisphere, and forward into new affiliations outside inert colonial temporalities.

In this symposium, postgraduate researchers from McNally School of Fine Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, and the Centre of Visual Art, University of Melbourne, Australia come together to explore historical and contemporary cultural exchanges in the arts, addressing time, space, disciplinary exchange and cross-island exchange. The presentations provide a glimpse of the cutting edge research conducted by postgraduates at McNally and CoVA and jointly point toward the increasing awareness and significance of cultural transformation as a mode of work for contemporary artistic researchers.

A detailed schedule can be found here.