VCAS conference stream: 'Mapping the world: How art and creativity can cross borders, break barriers and connect communities'
Part of the MCCT - Midlands Conference in Critical Thought 2025
University of Derby
April 24th – 25th, 2025
Concept
Artists (encompassing all art forms, visual art, musicians, theatre, writers etc) have long had the ability to transcend borders, circumvent boundaries and overcome barriers. But, as Ai Wei Wei states, the borders and boundaries we create, physical or invisible, can become entrenched in our lives, our thinking and our psyche. From a geo-political aspect, this is a topic that is very prominent in today's discourse due to the movement of people across borders, and the general trend toward globalization. Digital technology has also blurred our concept of borders, as virtual spaces practically eliminate geographical boundaries, while creating different types of barriers between groups of people.
Many artists have created challenging work questioning our understanding of borders, often with thought-provoking outcomes. At the same time, borders have also impacted the work of artists, as many art forms that emerge from within specific cultural contexts are pushed onto the global stage.
This stream explored the interaction between the arts and borders, and would encourage submissions from artists, writers, academics, and researchers to investigate how these lines of demarcation often act as both barriers and bridges, as well as the role of technology in shifting this dynamic. We aim to foster a dynamic space for transformative debate and innovative thinking through a combination of (participatory) presentations subverting typical conference presentation formats, as well as traditional theoretical presentations.
VCAS was selected to organise the MCCT conference stream “Mapping the World: How Art and Creativity Can Cross Borders, Break Barriers, and Connect Communities.” The stream explores how artists across disciplines challenge borders and boundaries, reflecting on migration, globalization, and the role of art in connecting communities across cultures. The stream will be presented with a hybrid format, both in person and using Zoom.
‘In recent years, after globalization, I think the political structure and the economic structure has been dramatically shifting and adjusting itself. At the same time, the adjustment of our thinking, or our understanding of the world, has still stayed in old times. It’s stuck there. We never really had a moral and philosophical improvement, or adjustment.’
— Ai Wei Wei
MCCT – Midlands Conference in Critical Thought 2025
Participating Presenters: Susan Stainman, Oliver Cloke, Andrew Milward, Susan Hogan, Ziyao Lin, Ziegi Boss, Thomas Nicolaou, Patrick Loan, Pragya Bhargava, Sally Stenton and Svetlana Atlavina, Q_plus_I
Stream organisers and curators: Oliver Cloke (Questioner) and Patrick Loan (Instructor)
MCCT
Panel 1: The Internal and External understanding of bodies across cultural practices.
Susan Stainman
Three kinds of border
Oliver Cloke
Borders a corporeal reality
Andrew Milward The Unity of the Internal and External in Homer
Susan Hogan Experiences of Inner Life: Does Interiority Matter?
Panel 2: The Virtual Space: blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction
Ziyao Lin
Archive 2023: When the Boundaries Between Humans and Machines Blur
Ziegi Boss
Media/Storm: Navigating Information, Narratives and Borders in the Wake of Hurricane Helene
Panel 3: Journeys, experiences and documenting place
Susan Stainman Three kinds of border
Thomas Nicolaou
‘City Break’ Film 2024
Patrick Loan
Crossing Thresholds: Freud, Personal Journeys and Drawing
Panel 4: Collective and collaborative Practices: mapping and cooperation within art practice
Susan Stainman Three kinds of border
Pragya Bhargava, Sally Stenton and Svetlana Atlavina
A Site of Collisions: Brownian Motion in Artist Collectives
Q_plus_I Mapping Borders: Transforming 2D Maps into 3D Structures with Q_plus_I
Q & A session - Panel 1
Ziegi Boss - Panel 2