Mar 14–16, 2008

Re-Imagining Asia: Conference

New contexts

Conference language: English

Europe must be provincialized – according to the provocative catchword formulated by Indian-American historian Dipesh Chakrabarty in his book Provincializing Europe.

With globalisation proceeding apace, Chakrabarty tells us that it is high time to integrate repressed histories into the Eurocentric view of the world instead of dualistically opposing modernity and tradition. The art industry, too, often tends to follow the international division of labour, with western participants being responsible for both the theory and the practice of the non-Europeans they are supposed to observe. In the conference Re-Imagining Asia, in contrast, Asian artists and theorists will put prevailing (western) exhibition practice and its interpretive canon up for discussion. How can we interpret Asian art productions differently – outside the framework of European perceptions of globalisation? The conference kicks off with Homi K. Bhabha, who has made a major contribution to post-colonial theory with his concept of hybridity.

Curated by Shaheen Merali

funded by

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