Beyond Islandness: Experiments in Writing Relationally

Beyond Islandness: Experiments in Writing Relationally 
10:00am - 1:00pm, Wednesday 27 November 2024 | UQ Art Museum

“Relationality compels us to think beyond islandness and invites us towards archipelagic thinking.” 
— Shahram Khosravi

How can writing abandon the concept of “islandness” and develop relational approaches to histories of art and visual culture? 

Timed to coincide with Hoda Afshar’s exhibition Hoda Afshar: A Curve is a Broken Line at UQ Art Museum (2024), this symposium considers how Pacific voyages, archipelagic thinking, and the material conditions of colonial prison systems inform how we compose histories “beyond islandness” within the nation-state of Australia. Centring new and recent research on carceral and border politics, the symposium asks: 

What modes of writing emerge from abolitionist, anarchic, Indigenous, diasporic, and settler historiographies in Australia? What role do art, archives, visual culture and poetics play in restructuring our sense of historiography?

Beyond bringing together writers working across interconnected histories and themes, this symposium is geared toward experimenting with form. Work in progress will be presented for discussion with attendees. 

This symposium is convened by Verónica Tello with presentations by Tello, Helen Hughes, Tristen Harwood, Ellie Buttrose, Astrid Lorange and Andrew Brooks.