A new publication on contemporary artistic research related to maritime and global transformations.
In the past fifty years, port cities around the world have experienced considerable changes to their morphologies and their identities. The increasing intensification of global networks and logistics, and the resulting pressure on human societies and earthly environments have been characteristic of the rise of a ‘planetary age.’
The volume “Maritime Poetics: from Coast To Hinterland” arose from a scholarly and artistic encounter, organized by TETI Group in 2018 in parallel to the exhibition “Hinterland: the eyes of the lighthouse, blood as a rover”, at Corner College, Zurich, curated by Professors Gabriel N. Gee and Anne-Laure Franchette.
It argues that contemporary artistic practices and critical poetics trace an alternate construction of the imaginaries and aspirations of our present societies at the crossroads of sea and land, considering complex pasts and interconnected histories, transnational flux, as well as material and immaterial borders.
Structured in four parts – Work and Leisure in the Port City; Commerce; Metabolic Pressure; and Dreamscapes – the publication brings together texts by scholars and artists, reflecting on contemporary artistic research and cultural narratives related to maritime and global transformations.
Professors Gabriel N. Gee and Caroline Wiedmer are both faculty members at Franklin University Switzerland. Professor Gee holds a PhD in contemporary art history from the Université Paris-X and teaches contemporary art history and theory, while Professor Wiedmer holds a PhD in comparative literature from Princeton University and teaches comparative literature, film studies, and cultural studies.
The encounter as well as the publication have received the support of the Swiss Research Foundation.
“Maritime Poetics: from Coast To Hinterland” is available in open access on Transcript’s website; it can also be purchased in print through the publishing house.