Abstract:  

At a time when the economic development and the (negative) consequences of globalization are causing the gap between rich and poor rather to widen than to shrink poverty and social inequality have gained public attention again. While movements like ATTAC and OCCUPY highlight the relevance of social inequality and poverty due to their material aspect as existential issues of a developed civil society, it is for other groups to deal with the cultural aspect of the issue and to discuss the perception of poverty by modern society as a case of cultural encounter. IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor focuses on exactly this perceptive relativity of poverty: Which are the Images of the Poor – historically and currently? What does aesthetisizing the poor in the Arts, in film, photography and literature tell about the quality of the cultural encounter between the well-to-do and the dis-privileged? In which way does your own standard of living and status influence your idea of where to draw the (material) line between rich and poor and your perception of what makes a person rich or poor in a non-material sense?  

Find more on the IMAGES conference series, the IMAGES publication series, the IMAGES exhibition series and the IMAGES 2011 exhibitions on http://images-1.over-blog.org/pages/IMAGES_The_Conference_Series_20112014-5155410.html, http://images-1.over-blog.org/pages/images---the-exhibition-series-2011-2014-5155457.html, http://images-1.over-blog.org/pages/IMAGES_20112012_Exhibition_Cultural_Encounters-5093272.html, http://images-1.over-blog.org/pages/IMAGES_20112012_Exhibition_Images_of_the_Poor-5093286.html

Target partner sought and current state of project development:

Discussing questions like the above one makes IMAGES (2) – Images of the Poor a genuine interdisciplinary project inviting scholars from all fields of the humanities and related fields (social and political science, economics etc) and preferably coming from universities in the NL, Belgium, the UK and the Scandinavian countries to join in with our planned activities, starting off from the results of a photo contest on cultural encounters and images of the poor which the IMAGES project developers and directors Veronika Bernard and Serhan Oksay launched in 2011 (Images of the Poor being Serhan Oksay’s contribution to the project idea) and leading towards an interdisciplinary and international conference and a publication focussing on Images of the Poor.