Haptic Encounters

This study day brings together perspectives from aesthetics, artistic practice, curatorial and accessibility studies, and the aesthetics of care to investigate touch as a perceptual modality, a gesture, a form of relation, and a medium of artistic production. The symposium will address a number of questions: how does contact generate different meanings depending on the bodies, objects, and contexts involved? What norms govern touching and being touched? How does the experience and evaluation of an artwork change when touch becomes a mode of access and engagement? And how can artistic and curatorial practices contribute to rethinking the relationship between haptic experience, accessibility, and care?