Join us for Mapping Spectral Traces Symposium, 12-15 October 2010

VT Humanities Symposium and SOVA Visiting Artists Series

Mapping Spectral Traces

12-15 October 2010

Mapping Spectral Traces is an international and interdisciplinary Virginia Tech Humanities Symposium and exhibition series that considers how difficult pasts can be researched, documented, represented, and animated in responsible and ethical ways.

How might we listen to and recognize stories, remnants, and submerged ways of knowing as unresolved remainders of memory? What might mappings that are sensitive to past injustices look, sound, and feel like? Might there be approaches to environment that treat ground as home and resting place, as thresholds through which the living can make contact with those who have gone before?

Mapping Spectral Traces will initiate the development of an international network between partner institutions that seek to promote respectful ways of knowing, acknowledging, representing, and mapping spectral traces through various media, creative and community-based projects, and publications. The various media used in this symposium include digital photography, printmaking, painting, performance, installation, video, sculpture, and collaborative qualitative research. Creative practices that empower communities and various publics to care for and represent their pasts will be particularly relevant for K-12 educators and professionals working in urban design and policy at the neighborhood scale.

For details see: http://www.research.spia.vt.edu/events/spectral-traces/

Day One: Tuesday/Oct 12

Armory Gallery

4-6pm: Symposium and exhibitions launch

Short talks by artists Judith Tucker and Mary Modeen

Day Two: Wednesday/Oct 13

Odd Fellows Hall

8:45-9:45am: Posters of local projects

Town of Blacksburg (Terry Nicolson and Anne McClung), Jeff Kirwan, Wendy Jacobsen, CL Bohannon, Terry Clements, Edwin Henderson, Nikki Graves Henderson

10-11:30am: Workshop: “Haunted Archaeologies: Native American Memory;” Papers by: Crandall Shifflett, Dane Webster, Mona Smith, Karenne Wood

Local Excursions: Landscape as Archive in Christiansburg

12-1:30pm: Yellow Sulphur Springs, Christiansburg, Guides: Brian Katen and Victoria Talyor

2-4pm: Christiansburg Institute, Guides: Bob Leonard and C.I. Alumni (limited space, by reservation only)

Hillcrest Dining Hall

5:30-7pm, Keynote Lecture, Iain Biggs, “Deep Mapping”

Day Three: Thursday/Oct 14

Experiential Gallery, Kent Square, Blacksburg

9-10:30am: Workshop: “Environments & Landscapes of Memory and Recovery”

Papers by: Christine Baeumler, Mary Modeen, Rebecca Krinke

11-12:30pm: Workshop: “Stories and Scenes of Trauma”

Papers by: Judith Tucker, Laurie Beth Clark, Gülgün Kayim

Local Excursion: Hidden Social Histories at VT

2-4pm: Solitude VT, Guides: Betty Fine and Anita Puckett (limited space, by reservation only)

Experiential Gallery: Group Exhibitions Launch

5-7pm: Artists available to discuss their works: Christine Baeumler, Iain Biggs, Laurie Beth Clark, Gülgün Kayim, Rebecca Krinke, Mona Smith, Dane Webster

Day Four: Friday/Oct 15

Local Excursion: Spectral Traces in Roanoke

9-11am: Multiple sites, Guide: Gerry Kearns (limited space, by reservation only); 9am: Mountain Ave/Franklin Rd SW; 9:30: Oliver Hill Home, 10: Henry Street, 10:30: Hotel Dumas (apprx)

Hotel Dumas, Henry Street, Roanoke

11-12: Community Workshops: tba

12:30-2pm: Lunch Workshop: The City of Roanoke’s Arts and Culture Proposal, Host: Tom Carr (limited space, by reservation only)

2:30-4pm: Workshop: “Mapping Spectral Traces as a Practice of Care”

Papers by: Talya Chalef, Victoria Walters, Karen Till

Sponsors: Virginia Tech’s: School of Visual Arts Visiting Artists Series; College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences; College of Architecture and Urban Affairs; Center for the Arts; Institute for Society, Culture and Environment; School of Public and International Affairs; Armory Gallery; Experiential Gallery; Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought; Vice President’s Office of Outreach and International Affairs; Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series; Urban Affairs and Planning; Institute for Policy and Governance; Department of Landscape Architecture; and University Honors. Additional sponsors include: the PLaCE Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol; Land²; University of Leeds, School of Design; University of Dundee, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design; the University of Minnesota; Town of Blacksburg Museums; and the Christiansburg Institute.