Conference: Un/Stable: Lands, Anxieties, Dreams
Photoworks and the Photography Research Group at the University of Brighton are co-organising a conference as part of the upcoming edition of Photoworks Festival. The theme Un/Stable: Lands, Anxieties, Dreams will explore geographical, psychological and metaphysical flows and connections of life, culture, and the environment.
This call for papers invites responses to the fragile and current states of personal and collective geographies. Through photography practices and perspectives on photography, we seek to address anxieties and fractured realities, opening speculative spaces of care, resistance, and reimagining.
The conference will take place on Friday 2 October 2026 at the University of Brighton, School of Art and Media, City Campus, and aims to support development of new research locating photography within various fields of study. These include ecological entanglements and cosmotechnics, geological and technological anxieties, looking at how histories, identities, futures and place are interconnected.
This area of research includes Art in the Age of Anxiety, (2021) edited by Omar Kholeif; Cosmotechnics: For a Renewed Concept of Technology in the Anthropocene, (2021) edited by Yuk Hui and Pieter Lemmens; Ways of Being, (2022) by James Bridle, and Returning to Benjamin: Art in the Age of AI by Victor Burgin (2025).
How to apply
To apply, please send the following information in one pdf document to Holly Birtles h.birtles@brighton.ac.uk
- Speaker – Abstract (max 300 words), plus a bio (max 50 words).
- Performance – Proposal (max 300 words), up to 5 images or links to documentation/video, plus a bio (max 50 words).
- Workshop – Proposal (max 300 words), up to 5 images and a list of materials or media requirements/links to documentation/video, plus a bio (max 50 words).
Deadline: 5pm, 25 May 2026
