Institution or Organization
Concord MuseumLocation
Concord Museum, 53 Cambridge Tpke, Concord, MA 01742Description and Requirements
CFP: Calling All Eccentrics | Friday, November 13 from 9:00am – 4:00pm Concord Museum, 53 Cambridge Tpke, Concord, MA 01742 Calling All Eccentrics is a one-day interdisciplinary symposium presented by undergraduates, graduate students, and emerging scholars with a keynote address by contemporary artist Mark Dion. The symposium will be held at the Concord Museum in conjunction with the special exhibition Mark Dion: Eccentric Collectors Like Us. Playing on the boundaries between fact and fiction, the exhibition will draw on the early history of the Concord Museum in order to provide opportunities for critical reflection, play, discovery, and public engagement around the work of museums today. The symposium will serve as a catalyst for larger conversations about the narratives of American art and history created within nineteenth-century museums which continue to shape the field today. Questions of value, knowledge, and authority will be explored, and additional topics could include the ethics and practice of collecting, the possibilities of inclusive museum practice, and participatory ways to engage visitors. Engaging the concept of the “eccentric collector” as a framework for examining how knowledge is created, preserved, and interpreted through collections, the symposium welcomes traditional 20-minute talks as well as original artistic and performative works responding to the exhibition’s theme. Through case studies, artistic interventions, and critical analysis, participants are encouraged to consider a plurality of perspectives, including intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches to collecting, and address core questions including: What motivates collecting? Who decides what is worth preserving? How do museums shape cultural memory? How is meaning constructed through objects? How can alternative or marginalized forms of collecting challenge dominant historical narratives? Papers and selected artwork will be compiled into a digital publication hosted on the Concord Museum’s website, extending the symposium’s impact beyond the event itself. Abstracts are welcome from undergraduate and graduate students from a diversity of fields, including but not limited to art history, American studies, museum studies, material culture, preservation, philosophy, cultural history, environmental studies, natural history, and related fields; as well as visual, performing, and conceptual arts. Topics might address:
- How American art collections were shaped by eccentric collectors whose personal visions continue to influence how American history is understood
- The American art history canon as a product of human curiosity, subjectivity, and power
- The act of collecting itself as a creative and interpretive practice
- How museums actively construct meaning
- How diverse cultural perspectives around collecting, artmaking, and exhibiting offer alternative ways of understanding objects and cultural memory beyond dominant museum narratives