Research project
Aesthetic Form & Uneven Modernities
- Start date: 2016
- End date: -
- Funder: International Research Collaboration Award
- Primary investigator: Professor Gail Day
Description
The Aesthetic Form & Uneven Modernities project draws together researchers from:
- Centre for Critical Materialist Studies, University of Leeds;
- DESFORMAS – Centro de Estudos Desmanche e Formação de Sistemas Simbólicos, Universidade de São Paulo;
- Birkbeck University of London.
The project explores how aesthetic forms reveal or manifest uneven experiences of temporality and how social contradictions emerge through aesthetic activity. By bringing together two contrasting sites of modernization (Brazil and the UK) — and by methodologically deploying the reciprocal lens offered by the contrast — the aim is to reconceptualise the debates on cultural modernity. The differences between these two societies enable a consideration of distinct historical experiences, but also to acknowledge their mutual imbrications.
Symposia and workshops have taken place in Brazil (September 2016) and the UK (Leeds and London, December 2016).
The project’s concerns intersect closely with the working group on uneven and combined development as part of the activities of the Centre for Critical Materialist Studies.
Contact
Dr Gail Day
Image: Carmela Gross, EXTRAS, 25 enamelled metal signs (each 20cm x 45cm). Courtesy of the artist.