The (After)Lives of Objects: Transposition in the Material World, University of Virginia Art & Architectural History Graduate Online Symposium, March 18–19, 2021

Transposition involves the movement of people, objects, and ideas from one context to another. The reverberating impacts of such regional and transregional exchanges have shaped artistic expressions, systems of knowledge, and relationships among polities. Recently, scholarship has turned to the object as a material manifestation of cross-cultural, transregional, and imperial encounters. [After]Lives is an interdisciplinary symposium that explores how transposition has materialized throughout history. How are objects changed when they are activated as mediums of encounter? In what ways do makers and users negotiate their positionality between and within societies through objects? How have artists and other creators problematized binary ideas of encounter and exchange in their works? When should adaptations be considered cultural appropriation instead of cross-cultural connectors? Can they be both? What is at stake when materials, artistic techniques, and/or technologies originating from one region are duplicated outside of that region?

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Mediation of transcultural encounters through visual and material objects
• Processes of adaptation and assimilation in visual and material culture
• History of looting, collecting, and the art market
• Role of institutions in the (re)contextualization of objects
• Studies that problematize notions of influence, exchange, and reception across social, cultural, and artistic hierarchies
• Imperial and colonial networks of collection, trade, and exchange

We welcome submissions from graduate students at all stages and areas of study.