Collect, Exchange, Display: Artistic Practice and the Medical Museum
(London, 6 June 2014)

For hundreds of years, medical collections have been sites of medical
and artistic exchange. Not only were many of their contents created by
artists and physicians, but the collections were also often compiled
by doctors, who were themselves artistes manqués. Although medical
museums have recently received attention in museological and
historical studies, they remain relatively ignored within art
historical scholarship.

This one-day conference will look at the anatomical, pathological or
medical museum from the perspectives of art history and visual
culture. Artists have utilised these spaces for the study of anatomy
and pathology--as well as for ideas and inspiration--but what do we
know about the artists, photographers and craftsmen and women who have
worked within the museum? How can we theorise the collecting practices
of the doctors who founded and/or ran these museums? What influence
did these spaces and their contents have on artistic practice, visual
representation and the writing of art and medical histories? How does
the medical museum continue to play a role in contemporary art-making
and medical learning? From the wax modelers to the commissioning
physicians to the painters and sculptors who were inspired by its
contents, this conference will spark a dialogue about the artistry of
the medical museum.

We encourage papers on all visual aspects of the medical museum in any
country from the seventeenth century to the present, and welcome
papers from artists, curators and scholars from any discipline, as
well as medical professionals.

This one-day conference will take place on 6 June 2014 in the MacRae
Gallery of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,
London.

We anticipate publishing a selection of papers from the conference in
an edited anthology.

Paper Proposals are due: 15 January 2014

Please send a 250-word abstract, along with a short CV (no more than
two pages), to the conference organisers:

Dr Natasha Ruiz-Gómez, Lecturer in Art History in the School of
Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex,
natasharessex.ac.uk<mailto:natasharessex.ac.uk>

Dr Mary Hunter, Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department
of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University,
Mary.Hunter2mcgill.ca<mailto:Mary.Hunter2mcgill.ca>

For more information, please check the conference website:
http://artisticpracticeandthemedicalmuseum.wordpress.com/

This conference has been generously funded by the Wellcome Trust.