Lecture series
These lectures, given by leading academics from the University of Cambridge and distinguished visiting speakers, will explore the theme of Narratives in relation to curatorial interpretation, storytelling, folklore, literature in art from around the world.
The following were invited to give plenary lectures in 2020:
Dr Susanna Avery-Quash - The tale of London's National Gallery
Did you know that when the National Gallery opened in 1824 its premises was a gentleman’s townhouse on Pall Mall, or that when it moved to Trafalgar Square in 1838 it originally shared space with the Royal Academy, or that in 1855 the Gallery was reconstituted by Parliament? This lecture tells the story of how the Gallery was transformed from 1855 into an ambitious cultural institution by its first Director, Sir Charles Eastlake, in terms of the type of art it collected and how the collection was conserved, displayed, and catalogued.
Dr Ian Chambers - Native American Art and Visual Culture: from the colonial to the contemporary
Beginning with a brief examination of European representations of Native American people during the colonial period the lecture will then move on to art produced by Native Americans, including Ledger art, work from Native prisoners at Fort Marion and The Kiowa 5 (6); looking both at the narrative of its creation and the narrative it tells. We conclude by looking at contemporary native art and visual culture as described by Kiowa-Choctaw artist Steven Paul Judd as “for Indians to have, and that gets white people to think.”
Dr Christina Faraday - "Learning by Painted Stories"?: Narrative Imagery and its Purposes in Tudor and Jacobean England
From tapestries to wall paintings, embroideries and prints, narrative imagery was one of the most popular genres in Post-Reformation England. In this lecture we will explore the many places where ‘painted stories’ were found, the purposes they served, and the artistic techniques they used to make their stories powerful and memorable.
Amy Jeffs - Illustrating the Myths of the British Isles: a medieval guide
Led by medievalist art historian and printmaker Amy Jeffs, this lecture will introduce the medieval myths of the British Isles and the surviving illustrations of them, considering what they can teach us about designing narrative art, both in the Middle Ages and today.
Dr Peter Moore - Curating narratives in an English Country House
Audley End is home to over 16,000 objects, originating from all over the world. Some are natural, others are manmade; many are rare and valuable, others are fairly mundane. Together, these accumulated objects tell a story of family collecting, spanning many centuries. Individually, they exist as portals through which far-reaching global and historical narratives, seemingly far removed from the domestic story of Audley End, can be explored.
Frances Morris - Tate Modern: from here to there and back again
Director of Tate Modern, Frances Morris, will address her vision for the museum and how recent programmes, research projects and a new generation of curators are reaching out to explore the history of art in a more open ended and expansive way, exploring affinities and interconnections across geography and time, generating a space for diverse voices to be heard and for multiple points of audience engagement.
Dr Dyutiman Mukhopadhyay - 'While I got goose bumps she hooted with laughter' - a film based neuro-psychological experimental design to understand variations in cultural models of self
Film is an artistic medium which can evoke a wide range of emotional states in the audience. This talk illustrates how emotional response is regulated by intra and/or inter-cultural predisposition of an individual. A novel film-based experimental design is explained which tests models of self using experimental psychology and brain-imaging which could serve as a potential psychiatric tool to assess how individual and cultural differences contribute to emotional and behavioural disorders.
Dr Jennifer Powell - The body and narrative in modern and contemporary sculpture
Exploring how artists have employed the body to create and disrupt narratives in sculpture from the 1910s to the present day, this lecture considers the work of artists such as Henry Moore and Antony Gormley.
Jo Rhymer - Narrative disruptions: Degas’ L’Absinthe, (1875/6)
Degas’ scandalous painting, L’Absinthe, defies the potential for straightforward narrative. Upon entering the café, the viewer is subjected to the same distortive effects of inebriation experienced by the two hungover figures seated opposite. What was Degas’ intention in representing psychological instability and what is the viewer’s role within this scene?
