Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 11:01:56 +0800 (U)
From: Stephen Cairns <Stephen_Cairns-AT-muwayf.unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Call for papers


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                       Subject:                               Time:10:13 AM
  OFFICE MEMO          Call for papers                        Date:17/9/96

Call for papers:

BUILDING
DWELLING
DRIFTING
migrancy & the limits of architecture

3rd 'Other Connections' conference
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
June 26-29, 1997

'OTHER CONNECTIONS'
'Other Connections' is a loose collective of architects, academics and critics
who live and work in places as diverse as Singapore, Lebanon, U.S.A., Turkey,
India, Britain, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Australia.  The fundamental aim of
this group is to explore architectural and urban questions within the frames
of postcolonial criticism and theory.  So far 'Other Connections' has been
responsible for two international conferences which have explored and
developed this broad agenda: the first, held in Singapore in April 1993, dealt
with issues of cultural difference and marginality; the second, held in
Chandigarh, India in January 1995, examined questions of agency in the
processes of decolonization.  Previous speakers have included Gayatri Spivak,
Alan Colquhoun, Anthony King, Balkrishna Doshi and Janadas Devan.

MELBOURNE
The complications brought about by the intersection of the contingent and the
theoretical have been consciously fostered in the choice of previous
conference localities.  Melbourne is the city with Australia's largest migrant
population, and is, arguably, the city in which this migrant population
performs its differences most explicitly.  In this spirit, the third
conference is to be held in Melbourne and will explore questions of migrancy
and architecture.  This conference is generously supported by the Faculty of
Architecture, Building & Planning at the University of Melbourne.

MIGRANCY & ARCHITECTURE
Migrancy necessarily raises questions of economy, laws of exchange, principles
of import and export - material smuggled and material declared.  In engaging
this term we are keen to foster a broad range of debates which draw on
inter-disciplinary crossings.  But, as the title suggests, of particular
interest is a double-edged set of issues, i.e.: the institutional, discursive
and material limits of architecture in the face of historical, contemporary
and emerging conditions of migrancy; and notions of an agency-in-migration and
how these might be thought or enacted architecturally.

In this context the following questions are prompted (others are welcome):

-How might the stabilities of 'dwelling' be reconceived in terms of the
fluidities of migrancy?
-What is at stake for architecture in the hybridities enacted by migration?
-How do architecture and urbanism engage with contemporary forms of diasporic
life?
-Is architecture organized institutionally so as to resist such questions?
-What are architecture's sanctioned ignorances in this context?
-How might the tension between the aesthetic and the political be engaged in
this context?
-How do discursive and material migrations intersect?
-Is migration a useful metaphor for inter-disciplinary work?
-If metaphor is a 'figure of transport', what is the status of the 'migration
metaphor'?
-How might issues of sexual difference be articulated in the context of
migration and architecture?
-What distinguishes 'the metropolitan' in Asia, Australia, and the Middle
East?
-Who migrates, and on what grounds do they migrate?
-Who hosts, and on what grounds do they host?
-Who claims the category 'native' in migrancy?
-What distinguishes travel and migrancy?
-How do the categories of the 'popular' and the 'migrant' intersect in
architecture?
-How might notions of the postcultural be understood in architectural terms?

INVITATIONS
We invite 300 word abstracts for:
-Papers on these or related issues.
And/or
-Studio sessions for hands-on design explorations

>From people writing, drawing or building in the fields of architecture,
urbanism and related arts (spatial arts, aesthetics, politics, geography,
postcolonial studies, cultural studies, gender studies.)

TIMETABLE
Send abstracts to arrive by:	November 15, 1996
Acceptances will be mailed by:	January 1, 1997
Confirmation of participation is required by:	February 15, 1997
Final versions of papers and/or studio outlines are due:	May 15, 1997
Conference dates:	June 26-29, 1997

Stephen Cairns & Philip Goad
Ph: +61 3 9344 6429
Fax: +61 3 9344 5532
E-mail: drifting-AT-arbld.unimelb.edu.au
Mail: Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, University of Melbourne,
Parkville, Victoria, Australia, 3052
Web site: http://www.arbld.unimelb.edu.au/events/mig-conf/home.htm
(Keynote speakers will be announced soon)

A separate cover sheet containing identifying information (name, title,
affiliation, mailing address, phone number and paper or studio title) must
accompany your abstract proposal.  Please do not put any identifying
information on the work itself.