Events
Conference on “Between Monumentalism and Miniaturization: Thinking Big and Small in Contemporary Culture”
11 Jun 2015 - 12 Jun 2015
11:00am – 6:30pm
G24, Fung King Hey Building, CUHK
Rey CHOW (Duke University); Jeffrey CLAPP (HKIED); John N. ERNI (HKBU); Helen GRACE (University of Sydney); Margaret HILLENBRAND (University of Oxford); Tsung-yi Michelle HUANG (CUHK); LEE Kar Tai, Phoebus (CUHK); Song Hwee LIM (CUHK); Kwai-Cheung LO (HKBU); Paul James O’CONNOR (CUHK); PANG Laikwan (CUHK); TANG Kin Ling (CUHK); TSAI Min-chen (National Taiwan University); WU Kaming (CUHK); YANG Yi Hsuan, Rochelle (CUHK); Christine YANO (University of Hawaii)
3943 1255 / cuccs@cuhk.edu.hk
Size matters. Emerging powers typically demonstrate their ambitions by commissioning monumental buildings, the latest examples of which are to be found in China and United Arab Emirates where global celebrity architects erect their extravagant structures. At the other end of the scale, miniaturization is often the manifestation of a lack of space, a pressing need to downsize by using the ingenuity of technology and innovation. Monumentalism and miniaturization, therefore, bespeak different human wants and desires, their polarization embodying the extremities of production and consumption. Yet, size is not merely a physical matter. It is also a structure of feeling and a mode of imagination. This conference provides a platform for thinking about a wide range of cultural manifestations of bigness and smallness (and, indeed, everything in between) and their implications for living in the world today.
