Seeing Soviet: Ornament, Handicraft, and Propaganda Art in the Early Soviet Union

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

The creation of Soviet subjectivity is a topic of interdisciplinary interest, touching on diverse ways in which individuals relate to political structures and ideas. The central role of art and visual media in this relationship merits further and fuller discussion. In focusing on ornament and handicraft, this roundtable will illuminate ways of redefining artistic and cultural heritage and mobilising it for modernising political projects, address the visual as a key framework for constructing collective identities, and discuss how early-Soviet scholars and theorists re-imagined the function of images and objects in radical ways. The Soviet state weaponised certain ideas about art objects and post-Enlightment aesthetic hierarchies for specific propaganda ends, but did so in a broader context of European thought in a period that saw the invention of ‘cultural heritage’ and historical conservation, tensions between concepts of ‘backwardness’ and the ‘progressive’ nature of the so-called ‘primitive,’ ideas about the universalism (or otherwise) of visual cultures, and the implications these sensibilities had for intercultural communication. In addition to these trans-national contexts, we will also situate our discussion of early-Soviet visual culture in relation to the question of visual literacy, media aesthetics, and the re-organisation of artistic labour. The roundtable format will allow us to address a broad scope of issues in relation to this rich and interdisciplinary topic, drawing on differing perspectives from our participants’ range of related specialisms.

Sub Unit

• Arts: Art History, Architecture, Dance, Museum, Music, Photography, Theatre 

Chair

• Mollie Arbuthnot, Durham University

Roundtable Members

• Mollie Arbuthnot, Durham University

• Christianna Bonin, MIT

• Gabriella Aurora Ferrari, Princeton U

Session Manager

• Dylan Mohr, U of Minnesota