1213 | Music at Borders: A Changing Sense and Representation of Place

Borders play a role in how people interact with their environment. Cultural practices are shaped by borders and express ideas of unity and separatism. For centuries, music has been integral to sounding the nation or region, often performing resistance or signalling change. Music helps generate a sense of belonging, not only to a community but to a place, often evoking the landscape and environment. It identifies, excludes and defines, creating space for marginalised groups as well as the dominant culture. This panel explores how music helps to build and maintain a sense of community and identity in border regions and questions the role of artists in imagining a common future. We invite scholars to consider the presence of art and artists in the places that they study and consider the creative processes that contribute to an understanding of these places, particularly at their borders. We question how music contests, negotiates and represents communities and places, highlighting activists and cultural leaders who are sounding a common future. There is a team of researchers at DkIT interested in doing a panel specific to the Irish context. They may also act as session chairs (difficulty adding names here). Dr Adèle Commins, Leandro Pessina, Darren Culliney, Aminah Distan and Colleen Savage are examining musical heritage and festivals in the border region of Ireland and could serve as additional chairs.We would welcome a series of presentations – in addition to the panel of five with 20-minute presentations, we suggest that there is room for shorter presentations with time to accommodate a rountable element.This call envisages scope for performance and creative arts practice presentations, which may include live performance, films or installations.

Daithí Kearney (1)
(1) Dundalk Institute of Technology

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