CALL FOR PROPOSALS
OCEANIC PERFORMANCE BIENNIAL
2013 ISLE&: PERFORMANCE & ECOLOGICAL RELATIONALITY IN THE
PACIFIC
November 22-24 2013, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland, New Zealand.
We are now calling for proposals for the 2013 Oceanic Performance Biennial ISLE& that explores a
range of live performances and installations, performative architectures and designs. All submissions
should address the theme of Isle&.
Submission of abstracts and performance proposals: Thursday 1 August 2013.
Notification of acceptance: Monday 19 August 2013
Any queries please email us at biennial@emergentecologies.net
See our website http://emergentecologies.net/biennial/
Oceania refers to a world of people connected to each other… anyone who has lived in our region and
is committed to Oceania is an Oceanian… for us in Oceania, the sea defines us, what we are and have
always been…. All of us in Oceania today, whether indigenous or otherwise, can truly assert that the
sea is our single common heritage…. Contemplation of its vastness and majesty, its allurement and
fickleness, its regularities and unpredictability, its shoals and depths, and its isolating and linking role
in our histories, excites the imagination and kindles a sense of wonder, curiosity, and hope that could
set us on journeys to explore new regions of creative enterprise that we have not dreamt of before…
the sea is our pathway to each other and to everyone else, the sea is our endless saga, the sea is our
most powerful metaphor, the ocean is in us. Epeli Hau’ofa: The Ocean in Us
In their individual journeys into the Void… artists… are explaining us to ourselves and creating a new
Oceania. Albert Wendt: Towards A New Oceania
The Oceanic Performance Biennial is a newly established platform to explore, express and extend
contemporary Pacific performance practice and thought. Combining visual, spatial, live and theatrical
arts, the event also links performance and ecological themes and practices. Performance is engaged
as a fluid multi-modal tool to critique and re-imagine cultural, social, political or ontological ecologies
of this region. The Biennial is a Performance Studies international Oceanic regional cluster event.
As an expanded field of flows, Oceania includes those countries and cultures on the ‘edge’ as well as
the Pacific Islands at its liquid ‘centre.’ Hosted by different island nations, the Biennale aims to build
local capacity and develop Pacific performance and environmental networks. The inaugural event is
planned for November 2013, to be held in Auckland, New Zealand: Isle& will focus on islands as sites
of exchange and connection. The subsequent 2015 Biennial will be held in the Pacific, and will be
linked with Performance Studies international’s dispersed global conference Fluid States.
2013 ISLE&: PERFORMANCE & ECOLOGICAL RELATIONALITY IN THE
PACIFIC
So vast, so fabulously varied a scatter of islands, nations, cultures, mythologies and myths, so dazzling
a creature, Oceania deserves more than an attempt at mundane fact; only the imagination in free
flight can hope—if not to contain her—to grasp some of her shape, plumage, and pain.
Albert Wendt: Toward a New Oceania
The Oceanic Pacific is a fluid continent assembled as a constellation of islands. This Oceanic is
constantly in flux, as diverse and differentiated as its 25,000 islands, and as extensive and cohesive as
Te Moana Nui a Kiwa: the vast connecting ocean. The structuring binaries of Western thought—
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represented by or, this or that, islands or sea—often establish islands as isolates: sites of exile that are
dis-connected by the ocean. Pacific thought however may be characterized in relation to and, where
islands and sea are interrelated entities that form a nodal network and space of interstitial flows.
Islands are understood here as additive, connective and relational conditions and sites of exchange:
an agential relationality signaled through the doubled “and” of the ampersand “&” (indicating
intimacy, cooperation and alliance). Thus Isle& explores the ecologies—cultural, political, economic,
biotic/abiotic—of Oceania and asks, through contemporary performance practices, how do you relate
to your Oceanic world?
In this inaugural Oceanic Performance Biennial we explore: Isle&s of practice (customary and
contemporary); Isle&s of thought (Oceanic and Western); Isle&s of cultures (Oceanic, European and
Asian); Isle&s of disciplines (performance studies and design, architecture, performing and visual
arts); Isle&s of modalities (performances, installations, panels and papers] and Isle& topographies or
analogies.
PERFORMANCE PROGRAMME:
Submit an abstract for performance, installation, &/or event proposals: Where it applies, please
advise in an attachment on: site, duration, timeline, technical requirements, installation & deinstallation, and how the performance event or installation will be ‘staged’ and funded. The Biennale
organisers will work with artists/designers to attain any necessary Wynyard Quarter site permissions.
Registration – all should register for the Biennale.
2-DAY SYMPOSIUM:
Submit an abstract for double-blind peer review [papers/panels & round tables/korero/virtual.
All submissions should be by the Easychair conference system:
Please use our Abstract template at http://emergentecologies.net/biennial/. Abstracts [and papers]
should be in Word doc format (.doc). Any extra material can be uploaded as an attachment in
Easychair (formats: .pdf /.doc /.zip /.mpeg /.avi /.mp4 /.mov /.wav /.mp3 etc). Please note Easychair
submissions are limited to 20MB. If your files exceed this please include a URL to your creative work
in the attachment.
Full papers: these may also be submitted along with an abstract or subsequent to acceptance of
abstract—both will be peer-reviewed. Papers will have 20-minute presentation slots within the
symposium event with round-table discussion thereafter. More informal methods of presentation are
encouraged.
Short Talks: short presentations (20 slides, 20 seconds each) may be proposed. Include a description
of around 200-300 words and a short bio of 50-100 words with contact information and affiliation.
Panels / round tables: round table discussions may be proposed. Include an abstract of around 5001000 words that outlines the Isle& theme, and the individual papers for panels; a short bio of 50-100
words with affiliations of each of the participants and chair/moderator; and contact information for
the organizer/s. Panels and round table discussions will have 90 or 120 minute time slots within the
symposium event.
Virtual: online presentations or digital installations will be considered for inclusion in the event
program.
Publication: after the event selected full papers and short papers on performances, panels or round
tables will be invited to submit for inclusion in a Journal special issue. These will be subject to doubleblind peer review.
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