Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Accepted Paper:

Conflation and critique: transnational articulations of artistic value in international development.  
Polly Stupples (Massey University)

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which art projects in Central America, funded transnationally through international aid, operate as sites for the articulation and transformation of diverse values associated with artistic expression.

Paper long abstract:

In the last 15 years, a new space for cultural production has emerged from the coming together of artists in 'developing' countries with funding from a handful of European development organisations interested in promoting a more holistic approach to development. In this context art 'projects' operate as sites for the articulation, contestation and transformation of diverse values associated with artistic expression.

Based on fieldwork undertaken with independent artists' associations in Central America in 2006 and 2008, this paper explores the ways in which diverse values are articulated and transformed in this transnational arena of arts funding and artistic production. It focuses on the values articulated by artists working in contemporary visual arts in Nicaragua who operate independently of the state, outside of mainstream gallery spaces and who receive almost no recognition for their practices within their own regional context. It emphasises the situated, historical and strategic aspect of these articulations and examines how they may be transformed and/or appropriated by their positioning within the discourses and structures of international development.

Finally it discusses some donors' attempts to articulate non-instrumentalised and non-economic values for artistic practices as part of their monitoring and evaluation systems, and their intention to use these articulations strategically to influence cultural policy within international development.

Panel P33
Performance and vitality: circulation and the value of culture
  Session 1