Textile Translations – Call for Papers, Zurich

Deadline: 20 February, 2013
Open to: proposals about Textile Translations worldwide
Venue: International Symposium University of Zurich, 6-7 June 2013

Description

Papers are being accepted for the International Symposium “Textile Translations Intermedia Processes of Textile Transfer in the Arts”. The Symposium will be held at the University of Zurich, 6-7 June 2013.

Processes of transfer and translation are crucial to the production and fashioning of textile materials: In the production of textiles, images taken from other media are submitted to the structure of warp and weft or translated into loops, stitches and knots. Thus, every textile technique requires translations and alterations of the original draft, even if the relation of the transferred subject or pattern to the media varies according to the technique: In the case of a woven image or a textile print, image and support are inseparable, though an embroidered motif, however, can be clearly distinguished from its backdrop. Translations into the textile and vice versa inevitably entail variation, mutation and adaptation. In this way translation processes leave traces inscribed in the particular object.

Because of the variety of manufacturing processes and their flexibility and malleability as material, technique, medium and metaphor, textiles provide a number of starting points for future research on processes of transfer. The symposium „Textile Translations“ seeks to investigate these. In doing so, it is not the intent to focus on the alleged hierarchy of the original and the copy – or a comparison of before and after – but rather on the process of translation and its effects and implications. In this regard, textiles can be positioned at the beginning and end of such processes, or even due to their flexibility and adaptability, embody transitory conversion. Focussing on the process as the ‘inbetween’, the interactions of textiles and other media are the main concern of the symposium.

Categories

Papers may address, but should not be limited to, topics within the following categories:

1. Translations of motifs and patterns
In the production of textiles the dessinateur provides a draft for the tapestry weavers which is much more similar to painting than to the reticular structure of textiles. Which changes are made if the intermedia transfer affects motif, colours and lines? Which adaptations have to be made? What compromises and alterations are by-products of the translation? Does change in media entail an amelioration, pejoration or reinterpretation of the motif?

2. Appropriation of textile crafts
Especially in the 20th century but also in recent artistic production artists with a classic academic background investigate archaic textile crafts. Similar to primitivism, textile folk art and craft are perceived as the cultural ‘other' and appropriated as seen in the works of Olaf Holzapfel or Rosemarie Trockel. Thus translation reflects upon media as well upon hierarchies of art and craft and gender issues.

3. Textile transfer
Textile metaphors as for example the „net“ are ubiquitous. Furthermore, textile aspects are adapted to other arts and media. Not least the last installment of the documenta displayed a quantity of artworks involving textile materials and works transferring textile properties into other media, as for example shown in the works by Adriana Lara and Thomas Bayrle. What do these other media reveal about the textile and vice versa?

Eligibility

The call is open to  proposals about Textile Translations worldwide.

Costs

Travel expenses (2nd class/economy) and accommodation will be covered by the organising institution.

How to send your proposal

Please hand in abstracts (300 words max.) by 20 February 2013 via e-mail to Anne Röhl (annemargarete.roehl@uzh.ch) and Anika Reineke (anika.reineke@uzh.ch).

Presentations should not exceed 30 min.

Organisers: Anne Röhl, Anika Reineke (Project Textile – An Iconology of the Textile in Art and Architecture)

Speakers will be notified by the beginning of March 2013.

The Official Call

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