Call for Papers: The Gaze at the Ethnographic (kritische berichte)
2025-06-27
Call for Papers on the topic “The Gaze at the Ethnographic: Contemporary Art between Heritage Communities and Ethnographic Collections” for the special issue 2/2026 of kritische berichte. Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften, edited by Catalina Alvarado-Cañuta and Sebastián Eduardo Dávila:
Our disciplines, institutions, and research practices are significantly marked by the ethnographic gaze: the structural distance in the study of others through observation, collection, and interpretation. Particularly in Europe and the United States, the formation, display, and study of ethnographic collections have turned museums into sites for cultivating the ethnographic gaze. For artists since the beginning of the 20th century, having access to these collections has played a pivotal role in the advancement and dispute over notions of art, ranging from modes of primitivism in modern art to what Hal Foster called the "pseudoethnographic" in contemporary art (Foster 1995). For heritage communities across the world, the ethnographic collection remains deeply connected to the violent acquisition of "cultural artifacts" during (neo-)colonial campaigns, and to the enduring memory of land dispossession and displacement. In recent years, a number of artists and practitioners from, or in contact with, heritage communities have revisited ethnographic collections, demanding access and restitution, practicing ritual encounters, or creating their own collections.
Turning the gaze to the ethnographic, this edited issue of kritische berichte seeks explorations of the status of ethnographic collections in relation to heritage communities, as well as practices of contemporary art. The focus on art allows us to engage with what Mapuche scholar Catalina Alvarado-Cañuta calls "contemporary creations"—practices linked to the "artifacts" of collections not as sources of inspiration, but through memory and continuity. The encounters between heritage communities and these collections destabilize both the ethnographic museum and the study of art, inviting us to critically reassess this separation and to open creative routes for reparation.
We welcome text-based and visual contributions from researchers, curators, artists, and practitioners, focusing on—but not limited to—the following topics:
the concept of art and contemporary art for heritage communities
the role of artists in restitution demands
community-based (counter-)collections
politics of collecting and display, e.g., contrasting notions of nationhood between national museums and heritage communities
commision, display, and reception of contemporary art in ethnographic museums
ritual encounters with "cultural artifacts"
About the journal: kritische berichte is the official publication of the Ulmer Verein (Verein für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften e.V.). The journal was founded in 1972 in the context of debates about the methods and subject areas of art history, as a forum for current contributions to those discussions. The diverse calls for a new, critical art scholarship provided the impetus for a journal oriented toward cultural studies—one that could address current political, social, and methodological issues that were not being discussed or published elsewhere. Since that time, kritische berichte has understood itself as a platform for discussing the practices, perspectives, inherent value systems, speech roles, exhibition practices, and current trends within the discipline.
- Foster, Hal. "The Artist as Ethnographer?". In Traffic in Culture. Refiguring Art and Anthropology, edited by George E. Marcus and Fred R. Myers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Submission Guidelines:
- Abstracts up to 300 words, along with a short bio, should be submitted by 1 August, 2025 to gazeattheethnographic@gmail.com
- Contributions in both English and German are welcomed.
- Visual or poetic contributions are welcomed.
- Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by 5 August, 2025.
- Articles should range between 25,000 to 30,000 characters (including spaces).
- All contributions must be submitted by 5 December, 2025.
Further information on ArtHist.net.