The Body Eclectic

The Body Eclectic: exploring the diversity of bodily being is a 3-day colloquium for the dissemination and exchange of ideas, research and practices that engage the topic of embodiment and phenomenological experience. Subjects include: bodily modification and enhancements via medical treatments and cosmetic surgeries; bodily capacities, including dance and performance, the discourse of ability and dis-ability, and neurological phenomenology; dealing with the failing or dying body, and alternative care; the body through space, including kinesthetics, meditation, and the collective experience of public space; and the body in media, including body-image, visibility and invisibility and technological mediation.

Through a highly inter-disciplinary approach, it is our goal to promote encounters between different contexts, disciplines, professions and areas of expertise as a means of stimulating creative, emergent and evolving discussions relating to the body. We are currently in discussion with a wide range of artists, scholars, researchers and medical professionals to develop this 3-day immersive colloquium. A formal announcement will be made later this year to unveil the roster of panelists and professionals who will be participating in the event. Bringing together the diversity of knowledge on the subject of the body, through the lens of contemporary social and cultural concerns, this colloquium aims to generate new and challenging perspectives on having and being a body, via wide-ranging definitions and experiences.

By moving beyond the scope of artistic practices, this series of panels and presentations enables participants to engage with discussions beyond the boundaries of contemporary art discourse and theory. In this way, it is our intention to provide possibilities for creative and scholarly development, knowledge of complimentary and inspiring avenues of research, and the meeting of minds from a wide variety of disciplines and settings. In the sentiment of the Inter-Disciplinary.net conference format out of Oxford, England, our vision for The Body Eclectic colloquium is to take up inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary discourse as a means of engaging in a rapidly changing world.

The Colloquium is presented in tandem with an exhibition of work by Vancouver-based artist and TRU Alumna Kristina Fiedrich. The Body Eclectic: Under my skin, a splendor of organs opens March 11th 2016.