Call for Papers

Call for Papers

Southeast Asia’s Art Histories Postgraduate Symposium: “The Merry Sounds of Hammers”

Online: 28–30 October 2025

Deadline for proposals: 15 May 2025 

Writing in 1903, the Javanese writer Kartini (1879–1904) described a “little village behind the hill where the great family of artists lives,” in which could be heard “the merry sounds of hammers and the ringing of metal… it is the welcome greeting of the woodworkers.” 1

With a similar spirit of curiosity and attention to communities of creative and critical practice, we call for papers for a postgraduate symposium, to be held online on 28, 29, and 30 October 2025, starting each day at 5pm Singapore time (7pm Melbourne time) and ending each day at 8.30pm Singapore time (10.30pm Melbourne time). 

Currently enrolled postgraduate (Masters or Doctoral) students, or those who have graduated from a postgraduate degree after 1 July 2024, are invited to submit an abstract of 400–500 words for a paper of 20 minutes, in English, as well as a bio of 150 words, to simon.soon@unimelb.edu.au before the deadline of 15 May 2025.

We invite proposals derived from graduate-level research on Southeast Asia’s art histories from any period, including interdisciplinary work, on topics including but not limited to the following:

  • The premodern, the modern, and/or the contemporary – including entanglements between these;
  • Fine art, visual culture, material and/or performing arts  – including interactions among these;
  • Built and/or natural environments – including artistic engagements with these;
  • Literature, moving image, and/or intermedial forms – including new theorisations of these;
  • Decolonial and/or postcolonial approaches – including critical reappraisals of these;
  • Southeast Asia as geography and/or imaginary, region and/or diaspora – including its relationships to other regions;
  • And so on.

This symposium aims to facilitate dialogue and exchange between graduate students working on different periods, places, and/or forms of art, as well as between students and senior scholars in the field.

The three most outstanding papers presented at the symposium will be awarded cash prizes of SGD 500 each, to encourage and support continued development of the papers for publication. Recipients of these prizes will be invited to consider submitting the papers for publication in Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia, an open-access and peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by NUS Press and indexed by Scopus.

The symposium is co-convened by Roger Nelson (Art History, School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) and Simon Soon (Art History and Curatorship, School of Culture and Communications, University of Melbourne).

The symposium is presented by the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The symposium is presented in collaboration with the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, and Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia.

[1] Kartini, “From a Forgotten Corner” (1903), trans. Joost J. Coté, reproduced in The Modern in Southeast Asian Art: A Reader, ed. T.K. Sabapathy and Patrick Flores (National Gallery Singapore, 2023), 120.