The Interdisciplinary Conference "Embodied Visions: Performativity, Visuality, Materiality"

The interdisciplinary conference "Embodied Visions: Performativity, Visuality, Materiality" invites scholars, artists, and curators to explore creative strategies employed in visual and performative arts from the 1960s to the 1980s, with a particular focus on how space, form, materials, and movement shape artistic expression.

This period often saw radical shifts in artistic practices, including the expansion of performance art, conceptualism, experimental theatre, kinetic art, and site-specific interventions, all of which challenged conventional modes of artistic production and spectatorship.

A particular focus of the conference is the Soviet period, where artists navigated complex ideological, material, and institutional constraints while developing new performative and visual strategies. From unofficial artistic movements to state-supported experimental practices, the conference aims to explore how artists working in the socialist context engaged with embodiment, materiality, and performativity. How did artists negotiate censorship and control while experimenting with form and process? What role did alternative spaces, unofficial networks, and pedagogical structures play in shaping these artistic developments? How did these movements intersect with or diverge from artistic trends on the other side of the Iron Curtain?

The conference “Embodied Visions: Performativity, Visuality, Materiality (1960s–1980s)” is organised by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia within the framework of the project “Cultural and Creative Ecosystem of Latvia as a Resource of Resilience and Sustainability” / CERS (No. VPP-MM-LKRVA-2023/1-0001) and is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia within the framework of the State Research Programme “Latvian Culture – a Resource for National Development” (2023–2026). The State Research Programme is administered by the Latvian Council of Science.

Selected conference papers and their respective authors will be offered the opportunity to publish articles in the SCOPUS-indexed journal Letonica (Q1,  Q2).

The conference venue – Pauls Stradiņš Medicine History Museum.