Central and Eastern European Art and Artists in the UK

This conference emerges from a study conducted at the University of Birmingham in partnership with the Central and Eastern European arts space, Centrala, as part of an AHRC Midlands4Cities Creative Economy Engagement Fellowship.

During period of this project we explored the level of inclusion and visibility of CEE artists in the UK’s creative economy. Throughout the study we have observed that CEE artists who work in the UK often think of themselves as occupying a space located on the verge of difference and sameness in relation to their British counterparts and in relation to their own communities. This experience, combined with the growing sense of precarity in respect of their future in the UK, results in the creation of barriers towards inclusion, visibility and representation.

During this event (11 October 2019) we want to explore and problematize the place of CEE artists and their artistic practices in the wider context of migration and diasporic experience. We aim for this event to become a platform for the exchange of research and practice and an occasion to inform CEE artists, curators and the organisations that support them through the public dissemination of the findings of our study and the provision of networking opportunities.

Keynote speakers

Dr. Maja Fowkes and Dr. Reuben Fowkes

Co-founders of the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, an independent research platform focusing on the art history of Central Europe and contemporary ecological practices. They head the Postsocialist Art Centre (PACT) at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London and co-direct the Getty Foundation-supported program Confrontations: Sessions in East European Art History.