Reflections on Blue: Oceans, Elements, Circulations
Session will present: On locationThird in this multi-year series, Reflections on Blue invites global explorations into the material, semiotic, and environmental operations of bodies of water (oceans, rivers, deltas, mangroves, etc.) and their strategic spaces (dams, ports, ships, aquariums, etc.) on the production and circulation of art and material culture from prehistory to today. Inspired by the recent rise of the Blue Humanities and the “oceanic turn” in literature and media studies, this panel will highlight original engagements with how the “elementality” of blue matter is represented and inscribed to move away from positivistic rejection and primitivist acceptance of nonhuman agency. Potential themes include: engagements with the Circum-Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Circumpolar Arctic, and diasporas across these liquid spaces; environmental art; Indigenous aesthetics and geontology; oceans in artistic exchange; resource extraction; art as a sensing technology; formalism; critiques of anthropocentrism.
Keywords:
Geographic Area: Transpacific
The Environmental Turn
Topics: Materiality
Topics: Ecocriticism
Topics: Asian Diaspora
