ReCreative ARTs: Adaptation, Retelling, Reframing, Reconstruction, Translation

Societies shape and are shaped by their environments. This involves sustained interaction with influences of other cultures as well as – and necessarily including – those of the past, in a constant balancing of conservation and adjustment, continuity and change, sameness and difference. Given these dual imperatives, it is no wonder that individuals, communities and political entities often adapt already existing stories to new circumstances, retell or rewrite narratives, reconstruct (and deconstruct) buildings and objects, reframe analyses, and translate texts from one language, language variety or context into another. They do this with complex combinations of motivations, which include, among other things, responding to the present, reinterpreting the past, informing the future, negotiating identities, circulating ideas, strengthening social ties, developing skills, and providing or seeking comfort and pleasure.

The ICOG theme groups Storytelling as Power – Identity, Equity, iNclusion, Sustainability (SAPIENS, Research Centre Arts in Society) and Heritage and Memory (Research Centre for Historical Studies) as well as the TaalX: Language in Context sector plan group of the Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen, invite all (primarily MA, ReMa and PhD) students and staff members of the Faculty of Arts and anyone who shares an interest in aspects of artistic-cultural acts of “recreation” – in all senses of the word – to exchange insights and questions with other participants during an inclusive and hopefully convivial symposium.