CONFLICT AS A CATALYST FOR CHANGE

The annual International Conference by the Doctoral Program at the Art Academy of Latvia will take place on June 15–16, 2023.

The current conference is being organized at the time of global conflicts, which have far-reaching geopolitical repercussions. It is precisely the questions of war and peace that have motivated us to devote the conference to an exploration of conflict as a catalyst for change in politics, society and culture.

Conflicts are often resolved in violent, explosive ways and the upheavals they cause may engender new ideas and act as catalysts for change. Cataclysmic transformations of the existing order, such as wars and revolutions, sweep away social, political, economic and cultural structures. It is the task of the survivors to start rebuilding them from scratch. Nowadays, there is also a sharpening of the conflict between the humanities and the sciences thanks to the investment of the contemporary business-driven consumer society in the development of new technologies, which get extensive media coverage. Conflict is also at the heart of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy. Catharsis results from the resolution of conflict inherent in any audio-visual artwork and it is essential to our emotional and intellectual experience of it.

We would like to invite each participant in the conference to consider the role that the idea of conflict plays in their research and the ways in which conflict may contribute to innovation in the form, content or methodology of their work.

Language of the conference: English and Latvian.

Please submit your abstracts for conference papers until 17 April to conference(abols)lma.lv.

Supported by: SIGNET Bank