EX NUNC invites theorists, curators and artists to submit proposal for critical writings that investigate the interrelations between History and Performance. The aim is to present reflections and critical contributions about Performance Art and Performativity in relations to history, narratives, body, presence, present, past and future.

EX NUNC welcome interdisciplinary approaches and any proposal that use written as well as visual contents, including video, audio and photographic forms.

A key starting point for this year’s theme, Historical Body, is the paradox that EX NUNC itself represents by presenting performance art practice through traces and records. According to many theorists Performance is, for its own nature, traceless and therefore ‘cannot be saved, recorded documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations’ [Phelan]. On the other hand History is based on what is left: memories, remembering, personal stories, influenced and distorted narratives, politics and neglected facts. The body is the site for private and collective memory construction, and it is from here that our research begins. Historical Body aims to think the body as an entity full of temporalities, a surface on which Past carves its traces, and Future casts its shadows.

Historical Body questions how a theory and practice of change and becoming might act in relation to the historical presence of personal and collective narratives. How the body conveys its temporalities, reflects the past and moves towards the future? We would like to reach out to external contributors in order to gather a relevant and meaningful amount of material that questions these issues.

Contributions can explore, but need not to be limited to, the following topics:

•Preservation of memories;

•Performing history;

•Construct narratives and rewriting the past;

•Storytelling urge;

•Historical readings of identity;

•Postcolonial narratives;

•Obliterated histories;

•Speculative futures;

•Practice of remembering and forgetting;

•Personal and intimate stories;

•Collective stories and World History;

SCHEDULE

Proposal deadline: Monday 21 September
Final draft deadline: Monday 12 October

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

•Proposal will be accepted by email only;

•Length of the proposal: 500 words max;

•Lenght of the final draft, for written contributions: 1500 words max;

For writings that are longer than 1500 words please contact us, we would be happy to discuss this further.

All proposals should be sent to info@ex-nunc.org. Please indicate in the subject line: JOURNAL PROPOSAL – HISTORICAL BODY I

EX NUNC is a curatorial and editorial project that aims to map, analyse and question the theory and practice of performance art and performativity. EX NUNC occupies both an on-line and off-line dimension; the former is represented by the website, which is structured as a polyhedral platform for presentation of meaningful material, the latter consists in a series of curatorial interventions taking place in different international locations. As a research-oriented project, EX NUNC intends to add a relevant contribution to the contemporary discourse about performance art.  The on-line platform will focus each year on a specific subject-matter, which will be explored across the website’s three main sections: Curatorial, Journal and Atlas. 

www.ex-nunc.org