An international conference focused on caring for the locality, community, and nature from the perspective of current artistic and curatorial strategies utilizing the metaphor of the garden and aspects of gardening
Conference venue: Campus at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Multifunctional Information and Education Center, Red Hall, Pasteurova 1, Ústí nad Labem
The interdisciplinary theme of the conference GARDENING OF SOUL: RESOURCES OF PERSPECTIVES presents various real or symbolic aspects of gardening (in the sense of care for the site and nature, general well-being, individual communities, specific individuals and sustainability) from the perspective of current curatorial strategies, contemporary artistic expressions and broader philosophical, social, geographical or environmental contexts. The conference aims to address the metaphorical complexity of the garden and gardening, as well as to interpret and contextualize specific creative socio-cultural approaches that implement these phenomena of care, nurturing, cultivation, collaboration or sharing into the creative process at different levels of artistic research and practice. The selection of conference papers emphasizes the presentation of specific curatorial concepts and authorial strategies representing efforts to incorporate elements of gardening into environmentally, community, participatory or activist-oriented artistic expressions, as well as to address the possibility of cultural or creative gardening in the broader context of environmental, gender, social or educational processes. A key aspect that significantly influences the conference concept can be considered the issue of interdisciplinarity, understood as a tool that enables a comprehensive capture, interpretation and contextualization of topics that fundamentally shape contemporary social discourse.
Beside artists, curators and researchers representing a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches to the phenomenon of gardening, the conference also includes participants who are representatives of collaborating community organisations involved in the project of GARDENING OF SOUL: IN FIVE CHAPTERS. The conference also opens the next phase of the long-term creative and research programme of the Faculty of Art and Design of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem and the Ústí nad Labem House of Arts, symbolically framed by the theme of gardening and aimed at deepening interdisciplinary research and social responsibility, which are based on the socio-cultural mission of this faculty and its exhibition institution.
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The selection of conference papers was realized in cooperation with the organizing institutions, the Faculty of Art and Design of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem and the Ústí nad Labem House of Arts, and with the contribution of institutions actively involved in the GARDENING OF SOUL: IN FIVE CHAPTERS project, such as: Skaftfell Art Center Seyðisfjörður, Dowd Gallery – SUNY Cortland, Kharkiv Municipal Gallery, Kunst Meran / Merano Arte, Museum of Fine Arts Split, PRECEDEE Hong Kong, <rotor> Center for Contemporary Art Graz, Schafhof – European Art Forum Upper Bavaria Freising a The Trinity Session Johannesburg.
