AAS International Symposium
Please notes the symposium and exhibition have been postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Old stories, new narratives responds to the following questions:
- What does it mean to be a maker in a globally connected world?
- Is craft an antidote for some of the issues regarding sustainability?
- What impact does the current focus on climate change have in terms of material and production choices, business models, social, community enterprise and ethical consumption?
- How can cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary collaboration inform long-standing values associated with contemporary craft practice and innovation?
Old stories, new narratives will provide an opportunity to share new ideas about practice, research-in-progress and case studies concerning both maker-led and theoretical strategies geared towards thinking about the future of making practices and process and what these might have to offer in a global context.
The programme of activity across the three days includes an exhibition of new work, symposium and skills sharing workshops. All investigate themes of sustainability, identity and collaboration and draws on a range of recent international collaborations.
The symposium at Lyth Arts Centre on Thursday 2 July 2020 seeks to celebrate the diversity of craft practice and the positive value of sharing knowledge and collaboration. Sessions intend to provoke and stimulate discussion by asking an array of critical questions about the values we invest in craft and how these values represent who we are, how we are seen and what craft can change.
The Symposium is preceded by the private view of the Meet, Make, Collaborate international craft exhibition on Wednesday 1 July at Thurso Art Gallery and skills sharing workshops on Friday 3 July led by Scottish and international makers.
Call for Papers
The Symposium will provide an opportunity to share new ideas about practice, research-in-progress or to present a case study concerning the future of making practices and process and what these might have to offer in a global context. The symposium intends to provoke and stimulate discussion by asking an array of questions about the values we invest in craft and how these values represent who we are, how we are seen and what craft can change.
We invite proposals from makers across all fields of craft practice; also from curators; historians; theorists and researchers. We ask for contributors to respond to one of the above questions relating to the Symposium’s themes.
Please email a 200-word abstract (for a 20-minute paper), along with a short biography to juliette.macdonald@ed.ac.uk by 17:00 (GMT), 2 March 2020.
Download information – word – PDF.
The symposium and exhibition is a project by Applied Arts Scotland SCIO in partnership with the British Council Crafting Futures programme including the British Council Mexico and British Council Thailand, the British Council Scotland, High Life Highland, Museums Galleries Scotland and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and funded by Creative Scotland, Edinburgh College of Art and Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
Image: Weaving – photographer Ana Paula Fuentes.
