Dialogues: USA Africa Dialogue Series - CONFERENCE AND ART EXHIBITION ON SEMIOTICS AND AFRICAN ART: VICTOR EKPUK IN CONTEXT

CONFERENCE AND ART EXHIBITION

SEMIOTICS AND AFRICAN ART: VICTOR EKPUK IN CONTEXT

College of Liberal Arts

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Friday and Saturday, October 19 and 20, 2018

Keynote Speaker: Kunle Filani

The recent publication of Toyin Falola's edited Victor Ekpuk: Connecting Lines Across Space and Time provides the opportunity to reopen the conversation on semiotics and African art in three prongs: an exhibition of the cumulative work of Victor Ekpuk; a series of conversations on his oeuvre; and an exploration of the state of African art in relation to a much deeper analysis of ideographies than has been conducted before. Artists, art historians, anthropologists, folklorists, sociologists, linguists, philosophers and others are invited to the conference and accompanying exhibition to examine Ekpuk's work and its import for understanding Nigeria, Africa and its diaspora, as well as the broader terrain of African art, from the indigenous to the contemporary. The conference will be structured into the following segments:

Segment 1: Scholars will discuss, among other things, Victor Ekpuk's body of work and its representations of alternative history and visions, and how these facilitate the understanding of Africa and its diaspora. Ekpuk's visual collective of illustrations, paintings and drawings project a universe of correlative imperatives—a critique and embracement of African cultures in different historical eras, the tensions within the African social fabric, a visionary grasp of indigenous cultures and practices—urgencies of vision dramatized within the context of discontent with the structure of his native Nigerian society and his longing for a better future.

Examining Ekpuk's art and its impact becomes necessary in framing and reframing the African past and its contemporary culture, reviewing the boom and austere periods of Nigeria's economic history, mirrored by the gloom and vivacity of its post-colonial metropolises, centers of a painfully birthing modernity, emblematic of the cultural conjunctions and confusions shaping a new civilization, the matrix that has given birth to the creative complexity of Ekpuk's art, a cultural density shaping his imaginings of the people's past, present, and future. Witness to a country degenerating from affluence to hardship, hopes to woes, blessings to curses, he dreams of a new future, his creative cadence flowers within the pursuit of beauty as a penetrative vision, driving towards political engagement and cultural and social transformation.

These general examples of cultural nationalism will be used to frame discussions about specific example of Ekpuk's artistry. The scholars at the conference who are contributors to the edited volume on Ekpuk will probe his art, ask and answer questions that connect art and culture, the artist and social responsibility, and the artist, the nation state, the continent and its diaspora. They will also frame ideas and raise issues about culture, identity politics, and cultural nationalism.

Segment II: Contributors from diverse and allied fields will engage art as both points of departure and arrival in considering the role of the arts in the old and emerging frameworks of the nation states and their economies. With specific reference to emerging economies where artists of various dispositions—cartoonists, performing artists, poets, and imaginative creatives difficult to classify —are regarded as outliers to nation building, the arts are often significantly marginalized. Yet, as exemplified by Ekpuk's work, the arts remain perhaps the most vibrant codifier of national spirit at any given period. This session will specially accommodate presentations from diverse art practitioners and custodians of culture.

Segment 3. Emerging works in any field of creativity in the humanities, such as new ideas on African studies broadly defined, new frontiers in rethinking performance and cultural studies, among others. This segment will allow for an enlargement of the ideas and discourses from the other segments on the arts to addressing broader issues around the past, present and future of Africa, and of African Studies.

We look forward to receiving you and to your participation.

The deadline for submitting proposal is September 15, 2018. Participants from abroad who will require to file for visa should submit earlier. Proposals should include a 250-word abstract and title, as well as the author's name, address, telephone number, email address, and institutional affiliation. Please submit all abstracts to:

Conference Convener: Toyin Falola toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu

And

Conference Administrator: Ms. Shannon Doyle, Research Assistant to the Jacob and Frances Mossiker Chair in the Humanities shannondoyle@utexas.edu