Call for Contributions:Workshop Chinese Instruments and Western Museums

Call for Contributions to share information at the Workshop Chinese Instruments and Western Museums to be held in Leiden, The Netherlands, 13-16 Sept 2012.

From 13 to 16 September 2012 the CHIME Foundation and Leiden University in The Netherlands will host a workshop on the topic of Chinese Instruments and Western Museums. The aim is to share and exchange information in the realm of Chinese musical instruments, in an open, informal atmosphere. The meeting should be of interest to museum curators and others who work with instrument collections, and scholars active in the realm of Chinese instruments and instrumental music.

The meeting takes place in the wake of the initiation of the MIMO project (Musical Instrument Museums Online) which was started in September 2011. MIMO opened a public online access point to the musical instruments catalogues of the project’s affiliated museums in Europe (http://www.mimo-international.com/).

This massive body of information will serve as a useful resource for the study of world music cultures. The database will hopefully benefit a wide group of users, including the source communities, music and creative industries and the general public. The MIMO project raises important issues related to music research, such as the relationship between academic study and the public exhibition of musical instrument collections, as well as the links between specific instrument collections in European museums, and how these items can continuously reshape the understanding of musical pasts and can open potential possibilities for future musical practices.

To facilitate exchange between museum curators and academic researchers, the CMA (Chinese Music Archive) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the CHIME Foundation in Leiden (European Foundation for Chinese Music Research) and Leiden University jointly organise the upcoming meeting in Leiden, which will feature individual papers, practical demonstrations, discussions, films and some performances. Museum curators, academic researchers and independent scholars are invited to submit proposals on, but not limited to, the following topics:

1.  The relationship between Chinese musical instruments and European museums

2.  Biographies of individual Chinese musical instruments and/or a special collection of Chinese instruments currently housed at European museums

3.  Chinese musical instruments within and beyond museum display

4.  Potential collaborative research and database creation projects

5.  Chinese musical instruments and European (post)colonialism

The languages of the meeting will be English and Chinese. Please submit your abstract proposal for 20- to 30-minute presentations in English (max. 350 words) to  ciwm2012@gmail.com  on or before 15 April 2012. There are possibilities for early acceptance of papers for those who need to rely on this for grant applications (please indicate need for urgent reply when you submit your abstract). The final result of our selection will be announced by 30 April 2012. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the organizers, Tsai Tsanhuang (thtsai@mac.com) and/or Frank Kouwenhoven (chime@wxs.nl).