Calendar Entry

Radius of Art Conference

Urban cultures in transdisciplinarity research experiences: The case of “Global Prayers”

The Radius of Art conference offers an international dialogue and exchange of ideas and experiences between key actors within the cultural, academic and political sectors. It is our wish to strengthen and expand existing structures and networks, initiate long-term partnerships between German and international organisations and launch shared learning processes.
 
 Another aim is to analyze the basic stipulations set for the realization of projects in the above-listed fields, to examine the structural frameworks that govern them and to introduce new concepts for sponsoring and finance structures.
 
 The conference is designed to lead and support calls for action directed at the key political actors within this context in Germany, the EU and on the international level 
 
 
Global Prayers Workshop: Urban cultures in transdisciplinarity research experiences: The case of “Global Prayers”
 
 The interdisciplinary research and culture project “Global Prayers – Redemption and Liberation in the City” explores the transformation of religious practice in metropolises worldwide. New faith-based strategies and practices are developed by religious communities and congregations and reconfigure the relationship between the urban, religion, and politics.
 As they expand, these religious movements are permeating and changing the social and spatial urban fabric. Of key interest are issues relating to the presence, visibility, or invisibility of the (new) religious movements, to the creation of physical and media-based domains, and
 to symbolic orders and urban codes of religious practices. Applying methods of artistic research and visualisation, this panel discusses questions concerning religious appropriations of public urban space as well as the use of artistic and ethnographic research methods.
 
 Against the background of the general project “Global Prayers”, presented by the initiators of metroZones, the forum presents two specific research contributions. The Argentinean video artist Lía Dansker is working on the new urban cult of “Santa Muerte”, which is prevalent in
 inner-city neighbourhoods of Mexico City; Dansker studies the popularity of the cult among imprisoned youngsters. A team around the Turkish urban planner Eda Yücesöy is using cartographic and ethnographic resources to study the changes in the political, cultural, and religious landscape of Istanbul.
 
 Speakers:
 Lia Dansker (Artist, Buenos Aires / Mexico City)
 Eda Yücesöy (Urban Studies, Istanbul)
 
 Moderators:
 Anne Huffschmid and Kathrin Wildner (metroZones)
 
 For more information see: www.radius-of-art.de

Published: 02.02.2012