4- Practical informations :

. Maps of the University of Lyon2, the Campus Berges du Rhône, and the conference rooms are online (left column, Main Menu, "Maps")

. A link to organize access from the train station and the airport (left column, Main Menu, "Maps")

http://www.univ-lyon2.fr/plans-d-acces/

. Practical information to organize your stay in Lyon (Hotels and Retaurants) are online along with a list of recommended restaurants (left column, Main Menu, "Practical information")

5- If needed, we will be happy to provide the participants with a certificate of presence on site.

 CONTEXT

The contemporary art world has gravitated toward notions of space and place with terms such as “in situ”, “outdoor” and “alternative space” becoming ubiquitous in its terminology. Further examples of art-geography hybridization include use of geolocation, georeferencing, fieldwork methodologies, and other geographical input in the creative process and in the appearance or significance of resulting works. Consequently, art critics and scholars increasingly view issues pertaining to public space, environment, and virtual space as prime topics of concern. Yet if art practice is engaged with a “spatial turn” then geography too is adopting and adapting art practice to the geographical imagination. Indeed, maps may be viewed as artworks; map-making as a creative process; and fieldwork methodologies as essentially artistic practices. A further aspect of the art-geography nexus concerns art’s engagement with contemporary spatial development planning and practice. From the branding of artist districts to festivalisation and local policies based on cultivating, promoting and clustering “creative industries”, artists are now seen as key players in the urban development game. This poses a new set of opportunities and challenges for artists to engage with revitalization processes, and also opens up new areas for critical research.


With such developments in how space and place are experienced in contemporary art, and how art is conceptualised and utilised in geography and allied disciplines, we believe now is a good time to take stock and cast a critical eye over the various art and geography interrelationships. Consequently, this conference brings together artists and geographers, as well as representation from throughout and beyond the academy, for discussion, exchange, and mutual learning. Guiding topics for include but are not limited to:

•         the emergence of contemporary art in geographical knowledge; its various theoretical underpinnings and methodological foundations. When and how conversations between geography and other better-established art disciplines started. How geographers claim, complement or challenge extant approaches.

•         the forms of “the spatial turn” in contemporary art and the ways in which geography (and its theories of space, place and spatiality) contributes to define art’s “relational” or “contextual” nature. The use of the tools and modalities of geographical knowledge in contemporary art, including maps and map-making, fieldwork, and documentary practices.

•         relationship(s) between art and geography in the making of knowledge of/about space and place, their relation to space, place and to regimes of geographical knowledge production.

•         the strategies used by artists to address social concerns and engage with spatial development and engineering. How do artists, art scholars, and geographers, with their diverse approaches, register and critically reflect on these new developments?

The conference is not only open to anyone interested in contemporary art and geography it also welcomes many modes of presentation and exhibition, including  documentary media, installations, performances, paper presentations, and roundtables...