CONF 20.09.2017

The Room Where It Happens (Cambridge, 13-14 Oct 17)

Cambridge, 13.–14.10.2017

Laura Igoe

The Room Where It Happens: On the Agency of Interior Spaces

A symposium hosted by the
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
This symposium explores the spaces of artistic, artisanal and intellectual production. From the artist’s studio to the alchemist’s lab, from the stateroom to the secret chamber, from the brick and mortar hall to the winding corridors of cyberspace, rooms and their contents have long impacted history, and transformed their inhabitants. Held in conjunction with the Museums’ special exhibition The Philosophy Chamber: Art and Science in Harvard’s Teaching Cabinet, 1766-1820 this symposium brings together artists, architects, and historians to consider the spaces where objects and ideas are generated.


Friday, October 13
6-7:30pm
Keynote Lecture

Making Room: Cartography, Collecting, and the Construction of Empire
Louis Nelson, Professor of Architectural History and the Associate Dean, School of Architecture, University of Virginia

Saturday, October 14
10am
ROOMS FOR LOOKING: Parlor / Museum / Studio
“No One Could Prevent Us Making Good Use of Our Eyes”: Enslaved Spectators and Southern Plantation Spaces
Jennifer Van Horn, Assistant Professor of Art History and History, University of Delaware
The Room of Broken Bodies: Civil War Wounds, the Army Medical Museum, and Perceiving Re-Unification
Julia B. Rosenbaum, Associate Professor and Chair, Art History, Bard College; Director of Research and Publications, The Olana Partnership, Olana State Historic Site

The Symposium on Habitability: Robert Irwin, NASA, and the Case of the Artist as a Meta-Scholar
Boris Oicherman, Cindy and Jay Ihlenfeld Curator for Creative Collaborations, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota

Moderated by Laura Turner Igoe, Adjunct Instructor, Temple University and Research Associate, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania


11:30am
ROOMS FOR MAKING: Library / Laboratory / Model
“A Scene in a Library”: Inventing and Destroying Enlightenment Photography at Soho House
Matthew Hunter, Associate Professor, Department of Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University
Connected Interiors: Learning Architecture and Observation in Meiji Japan
Matthew Mullane, Ph.D. candidate, School of Architecture, Princeton University
Interior as Microcosm: The Production of Epistemologies, Ethics, and Identities at Biosphere 2, 1991–1994
Meredith Sattler, Assistant Professor of Architecture, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Moderated by Ethan W. Lasser, Head, Division of European and American Art, and Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Curator of American Art, Harvard Art Museums

2pm
VIRTUAL ROOMS: Theater / Period Room / Cockpit
A Machine of Visibility: Paul Nelson’s Surgical Theater at the Cité Hospitalière de Lille
Nicholas Robbins, Ph.D. candidate, Department of the History of Art, Yale University
Visiting Mrs. M.-----‘s Cabinet: Period Room as Pedagogy
Sarah Anne Carter, Curator and Director of Research, The Chipstone Foundation
Bedroom Aviators—Flight Simulation and the Domestic Realm
Chad Randl, Visiting Lecturer in Architecture, Cornell University

Moderated by María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui, In-house curator for The Philosophy Chamber Exhibition at the Hunterian Museum and Co-curator of William Hunter’s Tercentenary Exhibition

3:45pm
Closing Remarks
Follies and Wonder Rooms
Mark Dion, Conceptual Artist
Introduced by Ruth Erickson, Mannion Family Curator, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
This project is supported in part by major grants from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation.
The exhibition and catalogue were also supported in part by the following endowed funds: the Bolton Fund for American Art, Gift of the Payne Fund; the Henry Luce Foundation Fund for the American Art Department; the William Amory Fund; and the Andrew W. Mellon Publication Funds, including the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund.
All events will take place at:
Menschel Hall, Lower Level
Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA

All symposium events are free and open to the public, but registration is required. For details on the programs, including how to register, visit http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/visit/calendar/the-room-where-it-happens-on-the-agency-of-interior-spaces

Quellennachweis:
CONF: The Room Where It Happens (Cambridge, 13-14 Oct 17). In: ArtHist.net, 20.09.2017. Letzter Zugriff 22.10.2025. <https://arthist.net/archive/16135>.

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