Initiated and organized by Maria Hlavajova, FORMER WEST is a long-term (2008-14) international research, education, publishing, conference, and exhibition initiative. With a focus on contemporary and theory, it aims to create a platform for reflection on cultural, artistic, and economic changes that have affected world since end of Cold War 1989. The project reexamines this period in dialogue with post-communist and postcolonial thought; and speculates about a 'post-bloc' future that recognizes differences yet evolves through political imperative of equality and notion of 'one world.' (1) The first two FORMER WEST conferences took place Utrecht, Netherlands, and Istanbul, Turkey, respectively; this third conference, co-curated by Marion von Osten and titled Beyond What Was Contemporary Art, Part One, took place Vienna April. Hlavajova set tone of Vienna conference as one of genuine inquiry. With levelheaded, sensitive intelligence, Hlavajova shaped a forum through which to probe both disorientation and [the] possibility of unprecedented global change, (2) and thus situated conference as a critical, emancipatory, and aspirational proposal to rethink our global histories and to speculate upon our global futures through artistic and cultural practice. (3) Asking how to move beyond confines of contemporary art's normalizing practices, Hlavajova and contributors-a diverse group of international artists, theorists, and cultural practitioners-articulated various positions about what might emerge from contemporary art's formerness. (4) The Vienna gathering featured over a dozen speakers from countries as varied as India, France, Austria, Germany, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom, and Netherlands, only a small number of whom can be covered here. The discussions were underscored by issue of whether West is, fact, waning or resurgent reaction to threats to its dominance, prompting recurring question: who has discursive power this rethinking of global cultural histories? Nancy Adajania, cultural theorist, independent curator, and co-artistic director of ninth Gwangju (South Korea) Biennale (2012) propelled conference into heart of questions about shifting agency and access with her talk An (Un)timely Meditation: Pointing to a Future Ecumene of Art. Focusing on concerns of postcolonialism and transcultural practices, Adajania alluded to Michel Foucault's notion of heterotopic space, which privileges otherness. In face of hegemonic forces, she argued, art as heterotopia needs to be recuperated-a recuperation that can be achieved part through a kind of tactical quietism; that is, the production of a pause. Much same vein as conference itself, Adajania posited a future ecumene of art, wherein a notion of cultural production shifts from a system structured by a Western art-historical understanding to one which global artists and cultural workers become producers themselves. Adajania closed with comments on artists' capacity to make world a habitable place- a leitmotif that would serve as subtext following two days of lectures and discussions. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In context of a search beyond confines of traditionally conceived contemporary art, how does difference actually unfold? Positing tacit entanglement of artistic, intellectual, and activist practices, second day of conference addressed new possibilities within and beyond field of contemporary art. Ashok Sukumaran (cofounder with Shaina Anand and Sanjay Bhangar of CAMP, a studio for critical transdisciplinary practice, Mumbai) and Ranjit Hoskotc addressed a shift network culture. While neither argued against network's capacity for organizing and mobilizing, they both conceded that, given its presence everyday life, network culture is increasingly implicated conventions and constructs of cultural hegemony. …