On Conversation: A Conversation on Conversation
Event Information
About this event
In the last year, conversation has been more important than ever. Celebrating our commissioned exchanges between artists and academics at QMUL, this event launches our week of events by hosting a conversation on the topic of conversation. We ask: How have communications technologies altered the way that we converse with each other? Who is speaking, and who is listening, when we engage in conversation with ourselves? What politics of identity and exchange enter into the conversation, and how can we press forms of conversation into experimental modes? Join us for a wide-ranging and exploratory panel on the modes of cognition, experiences of power, and formal aesthetics that inform conversations as they happen in our daily lives. In this Conversation on Conversation, Queen Mary academics and artists discuss how processes of conversation support, transgress and radicalise encounters of embodied discourse. Professor of Human Interaction Patrick Healey will discuss how conversations make us feel; Professor of Humanities Barbara Taylor discusses philosophies and representations of voice in solitude; and Lecturer in Experimental Cognitive Psychology Magda Osman will speak on how conversations are brokered. Throughout this panel, Professor of Contemporary Performance, artist and activist of conversation Lois Weaver will infuse her work designing and facilitating new forms and protocols for conversation.
#QMConversations
Visit the Queen Mary Conversations Week website for the full programme of events
Image: Long Table © Split Britches
Organiser Queen Mary Arts and Culture
Organiser of On Conversation: A Conversation on Conversation
In 2020, Arts and Culture at Queen Mary University of London invited UK-based artists to converse with academics from across the university. A dentist spoke to a sculptor. A mathematician to a choreographer. A dramatist to an opera singer.
While an unforeseen pandemic limited human contact for many of us, these artists and academics found ways to talk. They held conversations about climate change, mental health, housework, racism, childcare, justice, wellbeing. They exchanged knowledge. Expertise. Then the artists set to work. The results are original artworks and creative responses that could not have happened without conversations between academics and artists. They remind us of the power of art and the impact of connecting deep thinkers across fields.
The richness of these exchanges provides the inspiration for Queen Mary Conversations Week, which will run from 9 to 16 April 2021. Curated by the Arts and Culture team at QMUL, the events will cover a diverse range of topics from the histories of boxing, to the art of teeth, the future of mobility and the performance of zombies. We welcome you to join us: to push the boundaries of knowledge, to create new collaborations, to trade in talk. To celebrate the art of conversation.
https://conversations.qmul.ac.uk/conversations-week/
#QMConversations
This project was funded through the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Higher Education Innovation Fund
