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In art historical and visual culture terminology, materiality refers to the tangible properties of materials, specifically their interactions with the artwork, and how they shape emotional impact and enrich meaning. Mapping involves the representation of space, time, or abstract concepts, mediated through numerous visual and historical lenses.

Read together, materiality and mapping have the potential to radically shape methodological and theoretical change across art practice, history, and critique. Building from interdisciplinary works by Katherine McKittrick, Sylvia Wynter, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, and Okwui Enwezor and Atreyee Gupta, this session seeks papers that address and expand the myriad methods for mapping deviant spaces/times; or places considered transgressive, outside the norm, or excessive. We place maps and materials in a state of flux to allow for generative theories that remake contested spaces across the Global South, greater Black Diaspora, and beyond.

The co-chairs of this session encourage submissions from all, especially students, artists, makers, curators, and those working outside the arts.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• New methodologies or approaches for transgressing contested spaces or borderlands, such as the use of digital humanities tools; ways to read, access, and remix maps; shared experiences across time/space
• Collaborations or case studies from outside the arts
• Coproduction as a distinct art practice/research method
• Taking up/filling space with materials or methodologies
• The use of “unconventional” or transformational materials, or materials that require cultural knowledge (found objects, hair, plants, food)
• Challenges to the disciplines of art practice, history, and criticism by engaging with non-traditional spaces/theories