02 Dec 2013

Call for papers: The future of the biennial - experimental places to reinvent political space?

The upcoming issue of Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics will discuss the political future of the contemporary art biennial. How can biennials become experimental «sites» to rethink the relationship between art and politics, without lending themselves too easily to the confines of the contemporary art market and neoliberal political geography? While biennials are often criticized for subjecting themselves to urban/ regional marketing strategies, they are also defended as valuable places for the formation of new alliances among art scenes of the 'periphery', that are today steadily changing the global art map. How does this development affect the possibility of contemporary art to reflect and influence local politics?

Contributors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds are invited to submit essays, exhibition reviews or interviews that discuss the future of the biennial through a high variety of possible angles.

Topics may include (but are not restricted to):

- The capability of biennials to reflect and influence local politics
- The art biennial as a global and regional phenomenon
- Biennials and political activism
- Art biennials as utopian political «sites»
- The biennial as an experimental site for decolonization strategies and artistic interventions in geopolitical discourses
- The potential of biennials to contribute to a rewriting of the history, political geography and epistemology of places and regions.
- Mobility, relational geography and regionalization in contemporary art
- Biennials as experimental regimes of bodily orientation and their politics of sensation
- Biennials as reimaginations of territorialities, and renegotiations of the concepts of space and place


We accept submissions continuously, but to make sure you are considered for the upcoming issue, please send your proposal, CV and samples of earlier work to submissions@seismopolite.com within December 20, 2013. Commissioned works will be translated into Norwegian and published in a bilingual version.


Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics is a bilingual English and Norwegian quarterly, which investigates the possibilities of artists and art scenes worldwide to reflect and influence their local political situation.

Current issue: www.seismopolite.com
Previous issues: www.seismopolite.com/artandpolitics
Contact: submissions@seismopolite.com