Terra Incognita: Surrealism, Psychoanalysis and Sexuality in the Pacific Region

A symposium organized by the University of Melbourne in partnership with the AHRC Research Centre for Studies of Surrealism and its Legacies.

In the Surrealist Map of the World published in 1929, France had all but disappeared, the United States of America did not exist and the Pacific Ocean was at the centre of the world. This imaginary geography reflected the Surrealists' anti-colonial stance and their valorisation of art from countries beyond the territorial boundaries of Europe. In addition, Surrealism was received with surprising alacrity by artists, photographers and poets in Pacific region countries such as Japan, Mexico and Australia, and traces of Surrealist influence are found in much contemporary work in these countries today. Scholarship, however, has neglected the role of the Pacific region in the development and dissemination of Surrealism. This symposium seeks to redress that imbalance, by inviting speakers to explore how the central concerns of the European Surrealist movement, including the relationship between art, psychoanalysis and sexuality, were transformed through cultural interchange with the diverse cultures of the Pacific. The symposium will shed light on three, inter-related cultural exchanges: transmission of Surrealist thought from Europe to the Pacific; the influence of indigenous art and culture of the Pacific on the Surrealist group; the ongoing dialogue with Surrealist art and ideas in work being produced in the Asian-Pacific region.

Schedule

Keynote Speaker by video link

Professor Dawn Ades Director, AHRC Research Centre for the Studies of Surrealism and its Legacies, University of Essex, UK.

Contact

For more information: ahcca-info@unimelb.edu.au or anzja-editor@unimelb.edu.au
Phone: + 61 (03) 8344 5565

No registration necessary - admission is free.