Events
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CfP: The Languages of Fashion: Critical Reflections on Fashion Discourses. see more
THE LANGUAGES OF FASHION: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON FASHION DISCOURSES
Journal website and call download: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/fh/announcement/view/89
Instruction for authors:
We welcome full papers in English with a range length of 4000-6000 words, footnotes and bibliographical references excluded. It is highly recommended to use the template and APA STYLE as a formatting guideline. We also welcome the following formats:
Fashion mythologies – Cultural reflections and critical commentaries in the spirit of Roland Barthes’ Mythologies and Umberto Eco’s Travels in Hyper Reality (1500-2000 words max. Captions, footnotes and bibliographies excluded; tables included).Fashion Lexigraphy – A focused and critical study of the historical development and ongoing debates surrounding key terms and ideas in fashion (1500-2500 words max. Captions, footnotes and bibliographies excluded; tables included).
The deadline for submitting the full paper (saved in .doc or .docx format) via the platform is 10 January 2026. Issue 7 will be published in 2026.
Call for papers
Fashion has been personified as the younger sister of Death, a daughter of Caducity. It has been portrayed as a lifelong companion and described as capitalism’s favourite child. It has been conceptualised as a belief, a system, and an empire. These varied characterisations hint at fashion’s complexity as both cultural phenomenon and global industry.
As the global fashion industry and academic field of fashion studies have expanded and diversified, so has fashion-related discourse. The terms and concepts used within and beyond the academy to discuss what fashion was, is, could be, and should be are numerous and increasingly varied. This diversity of language and ideas reflects fashion’s widespread cultural and commercial presence as both daily practice and global industry. It also reflects how the academic field of fashion studies draws creatively from multiple disciplines. Additionally, it highlights the challenge faced by fashion scholars, advocates, journalists, influencers, and industry representatives who are increasingly expected to reassess and improve fashion’s planetary impact.
Whilst it may be premature to suggest fashion studies is at an inflection point, the challenges posed by its diverse range of conversations and perspectives will likely intensify as expectations grow for both the academic field and industry to contribute meaningfully to solving humanity’s most pressing problems: environmental destruction, social inequality, and political polarisation.
Does fashion need a new language to facilitate the industry’s shift towards a more environmentally friendly structure? Building on Lotman’s (1991) concept of the semiosphere, we can view fashion as a semiotic structure whose self-description has become crystallised in fashion media — what Barthes (1967) described as the fashion system perfected. However, this perfection presents a core issue: when systems reach full structural organisation, they gain coherence but lose the “internal reserves of uncertainty” that are crucial for flexibility and ongoing development.
Fashion journalism’s idealised self-description consistently excludes the lived realities of most fashion consumers: disability, illness, ethical concerns, and sustainability challenges. This creates an epistemological trap for fashion studies: relying mainly on fashion’s official self-description risks perpetuating its blind spots rather than exploring its full semiotic complexity.
The promise lies in what Lotman calls the “semiosphere’s periphery”—those marginal spaces where fashion’s ideal norm contradicts the underlying semiotic reality. In non-fashion and alternative fashion press, other media platforms, and industry margins, new languages are developed precisely where fashion intersects with broader societal challenges. These peripheral discourses may hold the linguistic resources fashion needs to move beyond self-referential perfection towards meaningful engagement with planetary and social realities.
At its core, this seventh issue of Fashion Highlight Journal seeks to examine both the theoretical foundations and practical implications of fashion discourse. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and research-driven discussions on topics including, but not limited to, the following:
- Language and Design Practice: In what ways do language practices influence fashion design processes, business models, promotional strategies, and consumer engagement?
- Disciplinary Boundaries and Methods: How does fashion studies’ interdisciplinary nature both enrich and complicate scholarly discourse? What are the implications of borrowing language, methods, and paradigms from multiple disciplines for collective action within the field?
- Divergent Discourses: How do the languages and priorities of academia, industry, and consumers align or diverge in fashion discourse? What are the consequences of these disconnections?
- Commercial Communication and Sustainability: How do commercially-driven communication strategies affect public understanding of sustainable fashion initiatives? Why do circular fashion efforts continue to face scepticism despite industry investment?
- Global Language Hierarchies: How does the dominance of English in fashion discourse limit truly global conversations about fashion’s environmental and social impacts? What alternative approaches might foster more inclusive dialogue?
- Mythological Constructions: How are new mythologies around fashion constructed through discourse, and what role do these narratives play in shaping contemporary fashion culture?
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Request for application: $100,000 Pilot Grants in Suicide Research. see more
The University of Washington Suicide Care Research Center is pleased to announce the launch of our third Request for Application cycle for pilot and developmental research projects. Funded projects aim to develop, refine, and/or implement scalable innovative interventions or services along SCRC’s Suicide Care Pathway for adolescents and young adults (ages 13-30) in outpatient medical settings.
Awarded projects will receive $100,000 over two years, methodological and administrative support from the UW Suicide Care Research Center in all phases of their project, guidance from Center faculty and content experts, access to funds to support dissemination of project findings, and more.
Key Upcoming Dates
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October 6, 2025 9:00am Pacific: Live RFA Information Session
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Register for the session here: https://washington.zoom.us/meeting/register/qFxn6KElQ-6KvzUm1XvYIg
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November 16, 2025 11:59pm Pacific: Letters of Intent (LOI) due
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Get help on your LOI! Sign up for optional consultation prior to submitting your LOI between October 6 – 31.
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Read more about the RFA on SCRC’s webpage at: https://psychiatry.uw.edu/research/suicide-care-research-center/ or directly to the RFA at https://redcap.link/SCRC-R03-2025
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CfP for Evomusart 2026 due 1 November! see more
The 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART) 2026 is a multidisciplinary conference that brings together researchers who are working on the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques in creative and artistic fields.
There is a growing interest in the application of Artificial Neural Networks, Evolutionary Computation, Swarm Intelligence, Cellular Automata, Alife, and other Artificial Intelligence techniques in fields such as: visual art and music generation, analysis, and interpretation; sound synthesis; architecture; video; poetry; design; and other creative tasks. Therefore, the use of Artificial Intelligence in such creative domains became a significant and exciting area of research. EvoMUSART provides the opportunity to present, discuss and promote innovative contributions and ongoing work in the area.
Following the success of previous events and the importance of the field of Artificial Intelligence applied to music, sound, art and design, EvoMUSART has been an evo* conference with independent proceedings since 2012. The EvoMUSART proceedings have been published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS).
Download the CFP in PDF here.
For EvoMUSART 2026, the paper submission deadline is November 1, 2025. More information can be found on the conference website: http://www.evostar.org/2026/evomusart/
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NERD 7th Heaven – New Experimental Research in Design (November 6–7, 2025, Berlin). see more
This year’s NERD Conference, organized by BIRD – the Board of International Research in Design will take place at New Practice / MA Design and Computation, Technische Universität Berlin & Berlin University of the Arts on November 6–7, 2025.
Conference Website: https://www.newpractice.net/nerd-7th-heaven
BIRD Website: https://www.bird-international-research-in-design.orgREGISTRATION: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/boardofinternationalresearchindesign/1786225
Venue
Alter Lesesaal / New Practice
TU Berlin Main Building
Straße des 17. Juni 135
10623 Berlin
DirectionsPROGRAMME
Day 1 / 6 November 2025
10:00
Registration snf Coffee10:30
Introduction
Welcome: Albert Lang (New Practice) & Marc Pfaff (BIRD / New Practice)
Opening Address: Wolfgang Jonas (BIRD)11:00
INTELLIGENT IMAGINATIONS
Chair: t.b.d.Co-Desirable AI Futures
Freyja van den Boom (University of Antwerp)Real, False-Worlds: Using a Truth Hidden at the Centre of Generative AI Image-Making for Design and Speculative World-Building
David Normington (The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw)12:30
Lunch Break13:45
INSTITUTIONAL INTERVENTIONS
Chair: Tom Bieling (BIRD / HfG Offenbach)Designing the Small Democracy of Rathlin Island
Brian Morgan (Belfast School of Art)Institutional Disorientations: Spirallings of a Design Practice within Entrenched Infrastructures
Isabella Brandalise (Monash University, Australia)15:15
Coffee Break16:00
ECOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS Chair:
Michelle Christensen (BIRD / TU Berlin / UdK Berlin)New Weather TV: Towards Ecological Imaginaries and Realities of the Mainstream Weather Report
Simone Fehlinger (Saint-Étienne School of Art and Design / University of Strasbourg / University of Potsdam)Seed, Potato, Pixel: Exploring Interspecies Relations between Ants, Humans, and Algorithms
Lilli-Chiara Kurth / Alessandro Mac-Nelly / Mika Zoé Rosenberg / Max Baraitser Smith (Berlin University of the Arts / Technische Universität Berlin)17:30
Short Break17:45
BIRD Book Launch: ‘NERD III’ & ‘Nutzen statt Besitzen – revisited’18:00
KEYNOTE ADDRESSManifesto Madness
Peter Friedrich Stephan (Academy of Media Arts Cologne)Day 2 / 7 November 2025
09:30
Coffee09:45
Short Introduction to the Day10:00
POST/DIGITAL PARADIGMS
Session Host: Marc Pfaff (BIRD / New Practice)Postdigital Neobaroque (PDNB): A Plurivocal Architectural Design Research Project
Marjan Colletti (University of Innsbruck)What Even is Design(ed) in Generative World Models? Extending The Interactive Paradigm of Computation
Lars Pinkwart (University of Zurich / Zurich University of the Arts)11:30
Coffee Break12:00
EMBODIED ENCOUNTERS
Session Host: t.b.d.Grasping Knowledge: Designing Tangible Devices for Gesture-Based Inquiry
Fabiana Marotta / Lorenzo Esposito (University of Naples Federico II)12:45
Lunch Break14:00
Decentered Discourses
Session Host: Uta Brandes (BIRD)Democracy by Design? Exploring the Political Potentials of Design Theory for Democratic Innovation
Felix Kosok (German International University, Berlin)Designs from Southwomen: Historicizing Ecuadorian Women’s Lifeworlds
Ana Belén Palacios (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW / University of Arts Linz)Omitted Needless Words
Evija Krištopane (Synstitute, Amsterdam)16:15 Closing Discussion
17:00 End of Conference
Admission to the conference will be free of charge.
Pre-registration (required for planning reasons): see above
The conference will be held in English.We are pleased to present the books ‘NERD – New Experimental Research in Design III – Positions and Perspectives’ and ‘Nutzen statt Besitzen – revisited’ at the conference.
Conference Website: https://www.newpractice.net/nerd-7th-heaven
BIRD Website: https://www.bird-international-research-in-design.org -
Exhibition — OA2025 Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines see more
OPEN CALL
Call for Contributions is now open.
EXHIBITION
(INTERNATIONAL, JURIED WITH AWARDS, OPEN CALL)3–17 December 2025
Gallery of Science and Technology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
Djure Jakšića 2, 11000 Belgrade, SerbiaSUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION
Send 70–100 words text description with title, authors names and two illustrations
⟶ via Exhibition Form or email info@strand.rs by 10 July 2025Established in 2016, the MicroMacro awards are dedicated to the recognition of design solutions in innovative ways that successfully implement new standards in architecture and urban design and planning and encourage environmental sustainability.
Who can enter?
The competition is open to individuals and organizations in the fields of architecture, urban planning, design, history, technology, art, photography, new media art and to all geographical locations.Who can submit a nomination?
If you are an organization, an association, a not-for-profit or an individual you can nominate. You can self-nominate or nominate another organization.Themes?
International exhibition follows the Conference thematic blocks: Phenomenology of Architecture, Science & Technology and Architecture, Architecture and New Media approach, Showcase Presentations – new idea or project realization in Architecture, Urban Design or Art.,Vision of the City/Architecture –from capturing moments of city life towards utopias in a form of artistic drawing, design, photography, design product…We kindly invite the perspective architects, town planners and artist to submit their projects, drawings, and photographs that respond to the scope of the above listed topics.
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Conference — OA2025 Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines see more
OPEN CALL
Call for Contributions is now open.
CONFERENCE
(INTERNATIONAL, PEER-REVIEWED, OPEN CALL)4–5 December 2025
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
Knez Mihailova 35, 11000 Belgrade, SerbiaSUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION
Send 250–300 words abstract with title, authors names and up to 6 keywords
⟶ via Conference Form or email info@strand.rs by 10 July 2025CONCEPT
On Architecture — Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines is based on the concept of an interdisciplinary, international, multi-location conference, with two exhibitions and a panel.
OA2025 would bring together partner institutions, representatives from both academia and industry, from different parts of the world, working together on organization and realization of the event. The motivation of holding a multiplaces conference, in several places at the same time, is the knowledge exchange, dissemination of research results and possible interaction and implementation aimed at stakeholders and sponsors. This is why the principle of networking is key.
Another principle of interdisciplinarity underlines the complexity and multiplicity of architecture, as well as the new challenges facing architects, urban designers, and artists. An interdisciplinary approach is the basis for defining thematic blocks/topics which include the essential approaches to the subject of architecture, innovative projects that impose new approaches and challenges, such as innovations in building materials, design and technology, which contribute to new aesthetics and a different understanding of functionalism, as well as architecture whose backbone is always creativity and art.
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