Multilayering as Method: Forest Sensoriums and Dark Ecologies of Making.
About this Event
Rather than treating layering as a purely formal device, we approach multilayering as a way of organising knowledge and experience through juxtaposition, accumulation, and relation. We are interested in work where text, image, sound, affect, and material processes coexist without resolving into a single, unified meaning.
The symposium is situated at the intersections of queerness, feminism, identity, folklore, forest sensoriums, neuroqueering, dark ecologies, and their artistic and cultural manifestations. It traces historical politics, relationality, resistance to societal expectations through corporeal, spiritual, and divergent communities.
We are particularly interested in how queer, trans-feminist, crip, and neurodivergent approaches to perception and knowledge-making open up alternative ways of thinking, sensing, and creating. Across writing, performance, visual art, and research, we ask how meaning shifts when it is layered, partial, fragmented, or non-linear.
This event is open both to those who would like to present work and to those who simply wish to attend. We have received a strong level of interest from people who do not wish to present but would like to attend and take part in the symposium.
Themes include:
- Multilayering as method in art and research
- Queer, feminist, and neurodivergent approaches to form and perception
- Ecology, folklore, and supernatural or mythic structures
- Forests as figure, method, and sensorium
- Darkness, opacity, and difficulty as productive conditions
- Non-linear time, memory, and ecological entanglement
- Experimental, hybrid, and practice-based research
We are especially interested in work that engages sensation, affect, embodiment, and alternative sensory or cognitive modes of knowing.
The symposium includes keynote speakers, presenters, an exhibition, and a screening programme, alongside opportunities for discussion, exchange, and informal gathering.
We particularly welcome contributions from neurodivergent, disabled, queer, and feminist practitioners and researchers, as well as those working in allied or supportive ways.
Key Information
Dates: 25 June 2026
Location: Bonington Building, Nottingham Trent University (City Campus)
Accessibility: Live captions will be provided. A vegan lunch will be available.
Please note: Registration is for in-person attendance only. Please only sign up if you are intending to attend on the day. Thank you.
Curation: Photography will be curated by Dr. Alex Jovčić-Sas (Bonington Gallery).
Video works will be curated by Nam Huh, whose work focuses on experimental media, diasporic identity, and digital storytelling and Elinor Rowlands MA FRSA, convenor of this symposium.
About the Symposium
This symposium is grounded in practice-based and care-led research. In response to increasing precarity in academia, it seeks to create a space that is:
- supportive and accessible
- interdisciplinary
- attentive to marginalised voices and methods
It aims to bring academics, artists, and practitioners together for nourishment, exchange, and support.
We particularly welcome contributions from neurodivergent, disabled, and queer practitioners and researchers, as well as those working in allied or supportive ways.
Key Information
Symposium date: 25 June 2026
Submission deadline: 9 June 2026
(We can offer some flexibility up to 11 June 2026.)
Access & Provision
- Live captions will be available
- A vegan lunch will be provided (prepared by Syrian refugee cooks)
Tentative Timetable
9:20am – Registration and name tag collection; introductions (Nam Huh and Elinor Rowlands)
10:00am – 1:30pm – Presentations
1:30pm – 2:30pm – Lunch and photography exhibition
2:30pm – 3:00pm – Curator talk (Dr Alex J.) followed by networking
3:00pm – 4:00pm – Screening
4:00pm – 5:00pm – Panel discussion with video authors; provocations and discussion
5:00pm – 5:30pm – Networking drinks (tea and coffee). Those who wish to continue to the pub afterwards are very welcome.
How to Submit
Please send submissions and any questions to:
📧 [email protected]
- Paper proposals: abstract (max. 250 words) + bio (80 words)
- Photography: up to 3 images (attached or via link)
- Video: one link (1–10 minutes) – send to: [email protected]
More Information
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/4411597/4411598
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
