COURSES, CONFERENCES & TALKS

Conferences & Symposia

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V&A conferences offer an opportunity for academics, professionals, researchers and others with a substantial interest in the subject to share the results of recent research and discuss topical issues relating to V&A collections.

Symposia are inter-disciplinary events that explore the relationship between design and other aspects of culture. They aim to reveal connections between the historical and the contemporary, making the V&A's collections relevant to today's debates and research. Invited speakers include academics, writers, visual arts practitioners and specialists from other fields. 

• Decoding the Digital
• Revealing Medieval and Renaissance Europe
• Marketing the Arts in a Recession
• Furniture in the 20th Century
• Plaster and Plaster Casts: Materiality and Practice
• From the Margins to the Core?
• Call for Papers - [Record] [Create]: Oral History in Art, Craft, and Design

Book online or email bookings.office@vam.ac.uk

The delegate registration form below is optional and, if completed, will be circulated to attendees at the conference. Completed forms should be emailed to tickets@vam.ac.uk two weeks before the event.

Delegate registration form (PDF file, 21KB)
Delegate registration form (Word file, 31KB)

Decoding the Digital

Thursday 4 & Friday 5 February
Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre
10.00-17.30

Hear a dialogue between contemporary digital practice and historical collections within the world of digital and computer-generated art and design. Speakers include artists Frieder Nake and writer Edward Shanken, with theorists Charlie Gere and Beryl Graham. There will be an in-conversation between Paul Brown and his son Daniel Brown. Other contributors include the collector Michael Spalter, the writer and artist Anne Morgan Spalter, plus Louise Shannon (V&A) and Shane Walter (Director, onedotzero), co-curators of the V&A exhibition Decode: Digital Design Sensations, and Douglas Dodds, one of the curators of the V&A display Digital Pioneers: Computer-Generated Art and Design from the V&A's Collections.

£50, £40 concessions, £10 students for two days,
£25, £20 concessions, £5 students for one day, 
Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

In collaboration with Birkbeck College, with support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Provisional Programme:
Day One: Thursday 4 February

10.00 Registration and refreshments
10.30 Joseph Watson (Learning & Interpretation, V&A)
10.45 Charlie Gere (Lancaster University)
11.15 Frieder Nake (University of Bremen)
11.45 Roman Verostko (independent artist and historian), "Sixty Years: from brush in hand to brush in machine"
12.15 Discussion and questions from the audience
12.30 Lunch (not provided)
13.45 Honor Beddard (V&A), Douglas Dodds (V&A) and Patric Prince (independent art historian and collector), "Collecting as an Amateur"
14.30 Anne Morgan Spalter (independent artist and writer) and Michael Spalter  (independent collector), "Creating, Critiquing and Collecting Computer Art"
15.00 Refreshments
15.30 Paul Brown and Daniel Brown (independent artists)
16.30 Discussion and questions from the audience
17.00 Close

Day Two: Friday 5 February

10.00 Registration and refreshments
10.30 Joseph Watson (Learning & Interpretation, V&A)
10.45 Edward Shanken (University of Amsterdam/Donau University)
11.15 Casey Reas (University of California, Los Angeles)
11.45 Karsten Schmidt (independent artist)
12.15 Discussion and questions from the audience
12.45 Lunch (not provided)
14.00 Louise Shannon (V&A) and Shane Walter (onedotzero)
14.45 Beryl Graham (University of Sunderland/CRUMB)
15.15 Hannah Redler (Science Museum)
15.45 Refreshments
16.15 Julius Popp  (independent artist)
16.45 Panel discussion and questions from the audience
Chair: Charlie Gere
Participants: Honor Beddard; Douglas Dodds; Beryl Graham;
Julius Popp; Hannah Redler; Louise Shannon; Shane Walter
17.30 Close

 

Revealing Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Makers and Markets 1100-1600
Thursday 18 - Saturday 20 February
Lecture Theatre
10.30-17.00

This three-day conference related to the new Medieval & Renaissance Galleries examines artistic production in the period 1100-1600, how objects were traded and used, and what they reveal about the culture in which they were produced. Continuities and change across the 'medieval' and 'renaissance' periods will be highlighted. The conference themes are 'Making', 'Settings' and 'Consumers', and it concludes with a debate led by Malcolm Baker. Speakers include Paul Binski, Caroline Campbell, Joanna Cannon, Glyn Davies, Caroline Elam, Kirstin Kennedy, Jacqueline Musacchio, John Paoletti, Luke Syson, Evelyn Welch and Paul Williamson

£75, £60 concessions, £15 students for three days,
£50, £40 concessions, £10 students for two days,
£25, £20 concessions, £5 students for one day
Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

Thursday 18 February
Day One: Making

Sir Mark Jones (Director, V&A): Welcome

Peta Motture (Chief Curator, Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, V&A): The Making of the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries

Session One: Artists' Materials

Chair: Susie Nash (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

David Humphrey (Royal College of Art): Gathering Opulence: the Acquisition of Precious Materials for the Goldsmithing Trade in Late Medieval Northern Europe

Noëlle Streeton (UCL): Importing Colour: Merchants, Painters and the Status of Imported Pigments in the Late Medieval North

Session Two: Models and Designs

Chair: Liz Miller (V&A)

Elisabeth Antoine (Musée du Louvre): Theme and Variations in the Oeuvre de Limoges: the Question of Models

Marika Leino (Christie's Education): Agents of Diffusion: the Role of Italian Renaissance Plaquettes in Disseminating Designs

Session Three: Reconstructing Artistic Contexts

Chair: Michael Michael (Christie's Education)

Glyn Davies (V&A): The Embroiderers of Paris and London 1250-1400

Kim Woods (Open University): Church or Palace? The Artistic Activity of the Anonymous Master of Elsloo

Session Four: V&A Objects in Focus

Chair: Mark Evans (V&A)

Joanne Whalley (V&A): Faking Luxury in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods
Meghan Callahan (Independent): Bones, Saints and Collecting in a Trecento Reliquary Diptych

Charlotte Hubbard (V&A): Relocating the René of Anjou Stemma

Friday 19 February
Day Two: Settings and Contexts

Kirstin Kennedy (V&A): Summary of Day One and Introduction to Day Two

Session One: Architectural Embellishment

Chair: Peter Draper (Birkbeck College)

Paul Williamson (V&A): Romanesque Sculpture at the V&A - the State of Research

Nick Humphrey (V&A): Sir Paul Pindar and his Bishopsgate House

Session Two: International Connections

Chair: Marian Campbell (V&A)

Bet McLeod (Independent): New Light on the Chalcis Treasure at the British Museum

Paula Nuttall (V&A/Independent): The Bargello Games Board: a North-South Hybrid

Session Three: Italian Renaissance Furnishings

Chair: Marta Ajmar-Wollheim (V&A/RCA)

Caroline Campbell (The Courtauld Gallery): When is a 'Cassone' Painting not for a Cassone? Defining and Categorising Paintings for Italian Renaissance Furniture

Lisa Boutin (UCLA): Maiolica in the Mantuan Court: the Propaganda and Utility of the Services of Isabella d'Este and Federico II Gonzaga

Session Four: Italian Renaissance Palace Interiors

Chair: Lisa Jardine (Queen Mary, University of London)

Philippa Jackson (Independent): Patricians' Possessions: the Sienese Renaissance Interior

Jacqueline Marie Musacchio (Wellesley College): Interiors, Objects and Identity in Bianca Cappello's Florence

Saturday 20 February
Day Three: Consumers

Luke Syson (National Gallery): Summary of Day Two and Introduction to Day Three

Session One: Artists and Patrons

Chair: Jeremy Warren (Wallace Collection)

Joanna Cannon (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Giotto, Giunta, Giordano: Painted Crucifixes for the Friars

John Paoletti (Wesleyan University): Strategies of Medici Patronage in Fifteenth-Century Florence

Session Two: V&A Objects in Focus

Chair: Eleanor Townsend (V&A)

Stephanie Seavers (UCL) and Catia Viegas Wesolowska (Freelance Conservator): Mapping Materials; Conserving Connections: The Gloucester Candlestick

Frances Hartog (V&A): Filling in the Past: Conserving the War of Troy Tapestry

Gabriele Neher (University of Nottingham): Floriano Ferramola's Tournament in Piazza Maggiore, Brescia (1509): Art and Society in Cinquecento Brescia

Session Three: Collecting and Consumption

Chair: Michelle O'Malley (University of Sussex)

Andrea Gáldy (Florence University of the Arts): On a Shoestring: Collecting Antiquities in 1540s Florence

Leah Clark (University of British Columbia, Vancouver): Between Florence and Naples: Merchants, Markets and the Circulation of Objects

Session Four: Perceiving Medieval & Renaissance Europe

Four views and a discussion led by Malcolm Baker (University of California Riverside)
Discussants: Paul Binski (University of Cambridge), Caroline Elam (Independent), Evelyn Welch (Queen Mary, University of London)

Marketing the Arts in a Recession

Friday 5 March
Seminar Room 1, Sackler Centre
10.30–17.00

Examine the impact of the economic slowdown on arts organisations, visitor attractions and audiences. Has the recession changed the way the arts market themselves? Does the ambition of broadening access have to take a back seat? Could collaboration between venues be the way to sustain audiences? With keynote speaker Sandy Dawe, Chief Executive of Visit Britain, research data from MUSE and case studies from Kew Gardens, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Playhouse, the Royal Opera House, the V&A, the National Theatre and Yorkshire Museums Trust, this event will explore how cultural organisations can maintain their profile and continue to attract audiences when entertainment may seem like a disposable luxury. This event is jointly presented with Arts Interlink and aimed at arts professionals.

£150, £135 concessions
Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

 

Furniture in the 20th Century

Saturday 6 March
Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre
10.00-17.30

Surveying major designers and centres of furniture design and production, this internationalconference will approach
seemingly well-known topics such as Bauhaus furniture and post-war Italian design from entirely new perspectives.
Speakers will also re-evaluate the roles of major figures such as Marcel Breuer, Gio Ponti, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown,
as well as bringing to light lesser known but significant work from early 20th-century Hungary and the Netherlands. Speakers
include Juliet Kinchin (Museum of Modern Art, New York), Marjan Groot (Leiden University), Greg Castillo (University of California,
Berkeley), Glenn Adamson (V&A/RCA) and Christopher Wilk (V&A).

£45, £36 concessions, £5 students
Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

Jointly organised with the Furniture History Society 

 

Plaster and Plaster Casts

Materiality and Practice

Friday 12 & Saturday 13 March 2010
Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre
10.00-17.30

Plaster casts have received increasing scholarly attention over the last few years, above all in relation to their place in the history of collecting, issues of display, and the conservation of the plasters themselves. This conference will focus on issues of reception and artistic practice, positioning plaster and plaster casts in the wider context of recent sculpture research. For the first time it will bring together sculpture and architecture in the context of plaster. Led by Eckart Marchand (The Warburg Institute, London), Marjorie Trusted (Senior Curator of Sculpture, V&A) and Charles Hind (RIBA), speakers are drawn from Britain, the United States, Poland, France Germany and Switzerland.

£70, £60 concessions for both days,
£35, £30 concessions for one day,
£30, students for both days
Ticket price includes buffet lunch.

Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

Supported by The Henry Moore Foundation

Provisional Programme:
Friday, 12 March 2010

10.00 Registration Coffee
10.20 Mark Jones (Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum), Welcome

Session 1 Casting the Body
Chair: Eckart Marchand,The Warburg Institute
10.30 Genevieve Warwick, (Glasgow University),
Plaster Casts and Portrait Busts:  Bernini and the Death Mask
11.00 Victoria Gardner Coates, (University of Pennsylvania), Re-Casting Pompeii
11.30 Discussion
11.40 Ellery Foutch, University of Pennsylvania),
Embodying the Medium: The  Plaster Cast of Eugen Sandow
12.10 Mark Elliott, (University of Cambridge), Ethnographic Plaster Casts
12.40 Discussion
13.15 Lunch (provided)

Session 2 Makers and Uses
Chair: Helen Smailes (National Gallery of Scotland)
14.15 Charlotte Schreiter, (Humboldt University), Artists or Craftsmen?  'Formatori' in
 Sculptors’ Workshops and Art Manufactories in the 18th and early 19th Centuries
14.45 Joanna Lubos-Koziel, (University of Wroclaw), Plaster Casts in the Service of  Religion: plaster casts and other mould-made sculptures in catholic practice in the  second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th-century. 
15.15 Discussion
15.30 Coffee / Tea

Session 3 Plaster Casts and Classicism in the Nineteenth Century   
Chair: Marjorie Trusted (Victoria and Albert Museum)
16.00 Karen Lemmey, Metropolitan Museum, New York, Permanent in Plaster: A  Final Medium in Nineteenth-century American Sculpture 
16.30 Kate Nichols, University of Bristol,
Mechanical Reproduction, Mass Audiences and  Beautiful Manufacture
17.00 Discussion
17.30 Close

Saturday, 13 March 2010

10.00–10.15  Arrival

Session 3 Artists’ Practice, Modern and Contemporary
Chair: Petra Lange-Berndt (University College London)
10.15 Christoph Zuschlag, University of Koblenz-Landau, Plaster Casts in   Contemporary Art
10.45 Jennifer Way, University of North Texas, “To make my paint more   concrete”: Plaster as Painting’s Commodity Form in the Art of Claes   Oldenburg
11.15 Coffee / Tea

Session 4 Architecture and the Decorative Arts
Chair: Charles Hind (RIBA and Victoria and Albert Museum)
11.45 Claire Jones, University of York, Plaster as Historic Resource and Creative Medium  in Nineteenth-Century French Decorative Art
12.15  Francine Giese-Vögeli, University of Bern, Rafael Contreras Munoz and the  Plaster Casts of the Alhambra in Granada
12.45 Discussion
13.15 Lunch (provided)
14.15 Isabelle Flour, University Paris 1, Plaster Casts, Historicism and Eclecticism in  Architectural Practice in Britain, 1850-1900
14.45 Wallis Miller, University of Kentucky,
Plaster Casts and Modern Theory:  Exhibiting  Berlin Architecture in 1901
15.15 Coffee / Tea

Session 5 Plaster Casts and Other Reproductive Media
Chair: Charles Saumarez Smith (The Royal Academy, London)
15.45 Carolyn Yerkes, Columbia University, AParallel of Charles Errard’s  Architectural Engravings and Plaster Casts.
16.15 Stefanie Klamm, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Plurality of  Media: Uses of Plaster Casts in 19th-Century Classical Archaeology
16.30 General Discussion
17.15  Close

From the Margins to the Core?

Wednesday 24 - Friday 26 March 2010
Sackler Centre
Wednesday 24 March, 09.30-19.30 (including a performance and drinks reception)
Thursday 25 March, 09.00-17.30 (optional social dinner at 19.00 at the Rembrandt Hotel, South Kensington, £30)
Friday 26 March, 09.00-17.15

Join this ground breaking international conference bringing together museums, heritage, cultural and community organisations, to explore equality and diversity in all its aspects. This timely and significant event will be a place for dialogue and refelction on how far diversity has become core to what we do, the interconnections between equality strands and what drives change.  Keynote speakers include Guardian journalist Gary Younge and U.S. artist Fred Wilson.  Other contributions, including films and performances, will come from Asia, Africa, Europe and Britain.   It will be a unique opportunity to share good practice, difficulties encountered and lessons learnt both in the UK and abroad, thus informing future directions and asserting the importance of this work given the social, economic and political challenges we face.

The four conference themes are:

Embedding Diversity
How far have organisations moved from addressing diversity through one-off projects to incorporating such issues into strategic planning and the core business of all staff and spheres of activity? Has the emphasis on reaching diverse audiences been at the expense of exploring how diversity affects other areas - who we employ, what we research and collect, the narratives we tell, how collections are classified and made accessible? How do these different spheres of activity interrelate and what are the barriers to developing a more holistic approach? What, if anything, do we risk in 'embedding' diversity across our organisations?

Connecting or Competing Equalities?
How interconnected are the different diversity strands - disability, gender, race, sexual and gender identity, age, socio-economic status, religion or belief? Do we emphasise one at the expense of another and is class often the poor relation? How feasible is it to move forward on all agendas simultaneously or is there a case for identifying priorities depending on the specific local or global context? How are strategic objectives arrived at and what is the impact of the different political, social, cultural, local, national and international contexts in which we operate? 

Social Justice
What is the role of the museum and heritage sector in promoting equality, social justice and mutual understanding and in countering extremism and prejudice? Where is the evidence for contributions in these fields both in the UK and abroad? How able and prepared are museums and the heritage sector in dealing with controversial topics and divisions within communities? 

Drivers for Change
What are the key external drivers for change and, in particular, what role does policy making play at an international, national or local level? What are the most effective institutional drivers for change - leadership, ethics, governance, strategic policy and planning, resource allocation, staff development?  How democratic are we at listening to staff at all levels within the organisation? How effective are we in consulting externally and developing sustainable and equitable partnerships which encourage collaboration and build capacity of various stakeholders? 

£180, £144 concessions, £51 students, for three days
£120, £96 concessions, £34 students, for two days
£60, £48 concessions, £17 students, for one day
Book online or call  +44 (0)20 7942 2211

£30, optional social dinner at the Rembrandt Hotel, South Kensington,
Book online or call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

Jointly organised with University of Leicester's School of Museum Studies. The Sackler conference for arts education is generously funded by a grant from Dr.Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation.

Please click here for the  Full 3-Day Programme  (N.B the programme is subject to updates)

For more information about the programme and break out sessions please download the  Additional Programme Information Day 1 ,  Additional Programme Information Day 2 , and  Additional Programme Information Day 3 .

To select your preference of break out sessions please download the  Break Out Session Booking Form  and email it to bookings.office@vam.ac.uk . No bookings are confirmed without payment.

 

Call for papers - [Record] [Create]: Oral History in Art,Craft and Design

Friday  2 - Saturday 3 July  2010
2010 Oral History Society Annual Conference
In association with the V&A and National Life Stories at the
British Library

Oral history has become a significant methodology for understanding the contexts of art and design practices. This international conference will bring together the global community of those working with oral history in the fields of architecture, art, craft and design (incorporating fashion, product design, photography, and new media).

Increasing numbers of community projects are now exploring their histories through testimony-based art, craft and design activities. And with the growing use of web-based communication, designers, artists, historians and other arts-based researchers are also engaging with the problem of creating appropriate environments in which oral histories can be stored and disseminated to different audiences and users. The relationship between content and form is one that researchers in art and design are particularly well-placed to explore. Rather than privileging the authorial voice in the arts, the conference seeks to examine the meaning and function of oral history in creative practice. The conference will, therefore, focus on three major themes:History, Practice, and Interpretation.

History: The contribution of oral history to the documentation and preservation of creative practices; the creation of creative identities through oral history narratives; the interconnections between the individual practitioner and their wider cultural context; the narratives of creativity; the construction of alternative histories; memories of lost practices.

Practice: Creative practice using oral history and memory work; designers as mediators in oral history projects/works; ethical considerations in using individual memories for art/design work; the use of images as memory prompts; arts-based community oral history projects; oral history as visual narrative.

Interpretation: Oral history as producer of meaning; oral history and testimony in the museum and gallery; narrative research in the arts and oral history; oral history and arts education; the problem of oral history as biography; the border between orality, aurality, and visuality.

Proposals are invited of 200-250 words that address one of the three major themes of the conference for talks or presentations of 20 minutes, or panels of one hour. Proposals should clearly state how oral history has informed the project/work/research described, and how it will be used in the presentation. Please send to Belinda Waterman, [Record] [Create] conference administrator, email belinda@essex.ac.uk by the 30 of November 2009.

Partners:
Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London
National Life Stories at The British Library Sound Archive
University of the West of England, Bristol