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PROGRAMME

This one-day symposium gathers together academics, students, writers, artists and practitioners committed to developing imaginative, creative and ethical narratives of desirable futures to meet contemporary social challenges.

Keynote speakers:

Activist and author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape, Sohaila Abdulali

Photographer and social commentator, Miguel Amortegui

Other Activities:

The day will include a live performance project by Murmuration Arts, who will devise a creative response to the event

We will discuss how presenters and attendees might contribute to the post-conference publication that is being planned to include creative and critical work with the publisher Routledge.

All food and refreshments will be vegetarian and vegan friendly

Symposium Contributors:

Katrina Abbatuan, University of Brighton
Hannah Aston, University of Brighton
Suryamayi Clarence-Smith, University of Sussex
Molly Drummond, University of Keele
Mary Gearey, University of Brighton
Fergus Heron, University of Brighton
Paul Howard, University of Brighton
Kate Meakin, University of Sussex
Tony Kalume, Diversity Lewes
Christina Reading, Independent Artist and Researcher
John O’Donoghue, University of Brighton
Neil Ravescroft, Royal Agricultural University
Nicholas Van Hear, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford
Sally-Shakti Willow, University of Westminster

This symposium is hosted by the University of Brighton’s Creative Futures
Symposium Organisers
Dr Matt Adams, Principal Lecturer, School of Applied Social Sciences
Dr Jess Moriarty, Principal Lecturer, School of Humanities

CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE EXTENDED

Further to the exciting interest that has been generated by this call we have decided to extend the deadline until Friday 19 April to ensure all who are interested have time to respond.

When – Thursday 11 July 2019
Where – University of Brighton – City Campus
What – This one-day symposium gathers together academics, students, writers, artists and practitioners committed to developing imaginative, creative and ethical narratives of desirable futures to meet contemporary social challenges.

Dominant narratives of the future are apocalyptic or business-as-usual, the world will either end horribly and abruptly, or we will be saved by geo-engineering or a techno-fix. We champion work that challenges both catastrophising and complacent visions of the future that can exacerbate feelings of hopelessness, anxiety and powerlessness. Extraordinary and everyday utopias celebrates work – real and imagined – that promotes and inspires social change and sustainable, empowered futures.

We welcome critical and creative work that connects with and also creates narratives of extraordinary and everyday futures. These might include but are not restricted to one or a combination of the below:

Artistic futures
Pedagogic futures
Future communities
Interdisciplinary futures
Future natures
Future design
Organic futures
Diverse futures
Healthy futures

You will each have 20 minutes with which to share your work. This might take the form of a traditional presentation, but we also encourage work that offers creative alternatives to the conventional conference format.

Please submit a 300 word abstract (or use the equivalent in images, video, audio etc.) to Stuart Hedley at s.hedley@brighton.ac.uk

The abstract needs to include your name, affiliation, the title of your submission, an outline of your contribution and details of how you will you use your 20 minutes. The deadline is 5pm on Friday 19 April.

We anticipate a post-conference publication with a mix of creative and critical work.

www.brighton.ac.uk/creativefutures

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