Disentangling Eurasia: Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and their Successors
Third Tallinn Summer School in Soviet History & Culture, July, 2023
I attended the Third Tallinn Summer School in Soviet History & Culture where the Scholars of Soviet and post-Soviet history gathered for a week-long programme in an attempt to reassess and critically examine the field at a time of great upheaval in the region. Through keynotes, workshops, and a stimulating cultural program, participants gathered questions about the conventional approach to Soviet multinationality and disentangle the various trajectories of the nations and groups belonging to the Soviet realm.
Why Remember?: Reframing Trauma
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 2024
The ‘Why Remember?’ conference 2024 will address the complex and contested questions that face post-conflict societies. What should we remember, what should we forget, and, ultimately, why? How can traumatic pasts be engaged with in the present in productive ways? It will explore the role of publicly visible memory and its potential impact on issues such as reconciliation and healing in the wake of conflict and how, either consciously or unconsciously, memory processes shape the present and the future. These questions of memory (and forgetting) are intensely political and have far-reaching consequences, and thus these debates are vital to institutions of cultural memory that engage with the past to make sense of the present and build a more peaceful future.
University of Arts, London, March, 2024
How do we understand the dynamic between practice/ing research and theory, and research in or as practice? Are there clear overlaps, or does the matter remain ambiguous? We wish to untangle various perspectives around research in the arts—both practice as research and theory as practice—and uncover perspectives on how research in the visual arts works in practice through readings, discussion and collaboration.
University of Arts, London, March, 2024
Founded in 2004, the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) investigates historical, theoretical and practice-based research in art, architecture, craft and design.
This research is driven by the desire to critique dominant ideas of 'globalisation' and to open up new perspectives that address questions of how art and design can respond to social (in)justice, decolonisation of institutions and the creation of more diverse global art histories.
TrAIN Research Centre, 2021
Presented my paper titled An Underground Bridge to Free Collective Memory: Exhibitionary Practices in Georgia 1985–1995. Postsocialism Art was organised by the Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) Research Centre, with support from the British Society of Aesthetics and the Association for Arts History.
University of Arts, London, 2024
Aiming to be student-led and to build conversation and community, this year we are welcoming different forms of sharing research: joint presentations, table-top demonstrations, performances, poster talks, film, sound and performance, as well as solo presentations. We hope having diverse formats celebrates the multiple and creative ways art and design research can be presented.
Collective art practices in Georgia 1985–95: Collaborative strategies for addressing political turbulence’
Tbilisi Bristol Association talk, March, 2024
I have been invited to present to the Bristol Tbilisi Association members my research in progress titled:
Precarious Art: How Do We Make Art in a World on Fire? NAFA and ADPRex Conference
Singapore, 1 -2 August 2024
The Arts & Design Practice Research Exchange (ADPRex) is Southeast Asia’s first annual conference dedicated to practice research. ADPRex positions NAFA, University of the Arts Singapore as the leading centre of arts and design practice research in this region, where artists and thinkers come together to share ideas and insights at the apex of arts and design practice and innovative thinking. This year, ADPRex is delighted to be partnering with NAFA’s Southeast Asian Arts Forum.
TrAIN PhD Student Seminar: Payam Sharifi of Slavs & Tatars
University of Arts, London, 11 December 2024
I will be leading the seminar that will look at Slav & Tatar’s extensive work on language and how this informs our understanding of regionalism.
Register here