Posing has been central to art, dance, and sculpture for thousands of years. In recent years, the growing interest in fashion media and modelling has also focused attention on questions of pose and posing. Incorporating notions of movement and stillness, posing can be understood in terms of historical modes of representation, as well as contemporary media and rapidly evolving relationships between bodies, subjects, and technologies of representation. Posing incorporates symbolic and semiotic meaning alongside embodied action and feeling. Recent coverage of the work of choreographer Stephen Galloway in 032c magazine, and new publications such as Steven Sebring’s Study of Pose: 1000 Poses by Coco Rocha testify to the growing interest in the cultural significance of posing and the pose – yet both remain under-researched areas with little discussion of their significance.
This symposium will assert the importance of pose as both a creative practice and an emerging area of critical inquiry. It will bring together multi-disciplinary academics and practitioners to discuss and develop new ways of understanding pose and posing in a historical and contemporary context. We encourage proposals for papers that address pose from global and diverse perspectives.Ìý This event represents a potentially fruitful and exciting moment to bring these strands together to the benefit of researchers within practice and theory-based media, historians of dress, photography, art and film and allied disciplines.
The keynote lecture will be delivered by David Campany, internationally recognised writer and curator, and Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster.
Programme
Friday 6 May. University of Westminster, Regent Street Cinema, London W1B 2UW
17.15 – 17.50ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Registration
18.00 – 19.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Keynote address: Dr David Campany (University of Westminster) –ÌýTitle TBC
19.00 – 19.15ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Comfort Break
19.15 – 19.40ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Performance choreographed by Christopher Spraggs
19.40 – 21.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Reception
Saturday 7 May. Â鶹ÊÓƵ, London WC2R 0RN
09.30 – 10.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Registration
10.00 – 10.15ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Welcome and Introduction Dr Rebecca Arnold (Oak Foundation Lecturer in History of Dress & Textiles, CIA)
10.15 – 11.15 ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Session 1: Posing – Directing – Moving (Chair: TBC)
- Dr Penelope Rook (independent Scholar): From Couture to Clochard:Ìý Posing the body in Vu
- Dr Peter K. Andersson (Lund University): Everyday Posing and Performativity in the Late Nineteenth-Century Street
- Marketa Uhlirova (Senior Research Fellow, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London): Framing the fashionable body in early cinema
11.15 – 11.30ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Discussion
11.30 – 12.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý TEA/COFFEE BREAK (provided, Seminar Room 1)
12.00 – 13.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Session 2: Art – Fashion – Sculpture (Chair: Dr Katie Faulkner, VisitingÌýLecturer, Â鶹ÊÓƵ)
- Dr Madeleine Newman (University of Leeds): Sculptural Fashion Shows? Pose, Parody and Performance 1968-1978
- Nancy Troy (Victoria & Roger Sant Professor in Art, Stanford University):ÌýThe Art of the Pose: Performing Saint Laurent Performing Mondrian
- Luisa Fink (PhD Candidate at Freie Universität Berlin and Curator at Kunsthaus Stade): Sculpture and Pose – The Actor in the Work of Franz Erhard Walther
13.00 – 13.15ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Discussion
13.15 – 14.15 ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý ÌýLUNCHÌý(provided for the speakers only)
14.15 – 15.15 ÌýÌýÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Session 4: Movement and Dance (Chair: Katerina Pantelides,ÌýPhD Candidate, Â鶹ÊÓƵ)
- Tiffany Boyle (PhD Candidate, Birkbeck University of London): Pausing the Performance: Artistic Gymnastics and the Statuesque
- Dr MJ Thompson (Concordia University, Montreal): Posing and Concert Dance: Steve Paxton’s ‘Proxy’
- Elizabeth Welch (PhD Candidate, University of Texas at Austin): Deliberate Poses: George Platt Lynes’ Dance Photography and the Dancer as Sculpture
15.15 – 15.30ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý ÌýDiscussion
15.30 – 16.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý TEA/COFFEE BREAKÌý(provided, Seminar Room 1)
16.00 – 17.00Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Session 4: Bodies – Gender – Politics (Chair: by Dr Eugenie Shinkle, Reader in Photography, Westminster University)
- Lauren Downing Peters (PhD Candidate, Centre for Fashion Studies, Stockholm University): “Fashion Plusâ€: Pose and the Plus-size Body in Vogue, 1986-1988
- Dr Sara Knelman (Assistant Professor, Ryerson University): Posing and Re-posing: Photography and the Politics of Posture
- Felice McDowell (Associate Lecturer. London College of Fashion): Writing about Posing: myths and narratives of post-war fashion modelling
17.00 – 17.15ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Discussion
17.15 – 18.00ÌýÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Panel Discussion (Chair: David Bennett, photographer and editor-in-chief of PpR Journal)
- Jan de Villeneuve (fashion model), Julian Marshall (fashion photographer)
- Caroline Hamilton (dance and costume historian)
18.00ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Drinks Reception