East and the West: Body and Spirit in Writing Conference

Time: May 26-28, 2010
Location: Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

The international conference entitled East and the West: Body and Spirit in Writing, is the first event in a series aimed at exploring and documenting diversities and interactions in various forms of writing. The overall project will highlight the relationship between various types of thought and forms of communication in the different cultural contexts of Asia and Europe: i.e. the methods created by individuals and societies to express fundamental modes of interacting and communicating. In more specific terms, the starting point will be to consider writing through its material manifestation: calligraphy. In the European tradition, calligraphy makes use of abstract symbols basically dependent on phonetic expression.

To a large extent this process is also found in the calligraphy of Islamic and Indian languages. In the Far East, on the other hand, calligraphy takes on a more independent material aspect, not only because it has a strong visual component binding the written sign to an object or a concept, but because calligraphy and image are very often merged in both art and literature and especially in painting on religious themes. The project will be accompanied by correlated activities, such as educational exhibitions, demonstrations of calligraphy, graphic art and photography workshops, study conferences and round tables.

The conference will be organized in collaboration with the International Hokusai Research Centre. The contemporary art selection shown during the conference is curated by Arthub Asia.

The closing of the conference will be marked with the lighting of the incense carpet pictured above.

For the complete program please see here.
The poster of the symposium can be downloaded here.