We’re pleased to share this call for papers and activations from Sally Kawamura (Associated Researcher with Activating Fluxus and Daphne Jackson Fellow at the University of York) and Emily Clarkson (University of Edinburgh), who are convening the panel What Fun! Play, Participation, and Joy across Transnational Intermedia Networks at the Association for Art History Annual Conference in Exeter, United Kingdom, 7–9 April, 2027.
Fun is not frivolous. At a moment of political and ecological uncertainty, this session proposes laughter, play, and collective delight as urgent critical frameworks, looking to artists networks of the 1960s, 70s and 80s as both historical model and ongoing provocation.
Fluxus offers an entry point: that wonderfully unruly network of artists who chose to play. Its scores invited strangers to collaborate; its events dissolved the boundary between performer and audience; its multiples put art in pockets and through letterboxes. But Fluxus was never the whole story. Across the same decades, artists working within and beyond its orbit (Gutai, Situationist International, Mail Art) in a host of locally rooted yet globally connected practices, were asking strikingly similar questions about art, life, laughter, and what it might mean to have a good time together.
This half-day session draws out those parallel energies. We invite 20-minute papers and/or 5-minute activations exploring performance, participation, humour, games, and the everyday across global artist networks. We are particularly interested in work recovering understudied geographies or figures, and that take seriously the political dimensions of fun; we also welcome papers from beyond art history exploring these themes in relation to arts education or policy.
Papers and activations are equally welcome, and we will facilitate alternative modes of delivery where possible. We envisage 3–4 papers alongside 1–2 activations, with time for discussion and scope for audience participation. We want this session to feel like the practices it studies: rigorous, open, and, above all, fun!
Full details are available here:
Featured Image:
Mieko Shiomi & Alison Knowles at Shiomi’s concert, Washington Square Galleries, New York, Oct. 30, 1964. Photo by Peter Moore © Estate of Peter Moore/VAGA, New York, NY
