Tate conference: Artist and empire
Birkbeck academics Dr Emily Senior and Dr Sarah Thomas are involved in organising Tate Britain’s major conference which marks the opening of the exhibition Artist and Empire.
Birkbeck academics Dr Emily Senior and Dr Sarah Thomas are involved in organising Tate Britain’s major conference which marks the opening of the exhibition Artist and Empire.
Scholars, curators and artists from around Britain and the world consider art created under the conditions of the British Empire, its aftermath, and its future in museum and gallery displays.
Scholarship of art associated with the British Empire has expanded over the last two decades, across a huge span of disciplines and locations. This conference takes the historic opportunity of the exhibition, featuring diverse artists from the sixteenth century to the present day, to bring together people to meet and share the latest research being developed around this subject. The papers, roundtables and audience discussions will consider the cosmopolitan character of objects and images, and the way geographical, cultural and chronological dislocations have in many instances obscured, changed or suppressed their history, significance and aesthetics. We will also explore how approaches to contemporary art, archives, curation and collecting can help develop new ways to look at them now.
The conference takes place on November 24, 25 and 26. Full details can be found on the Tate website.
You can listen to a podcast of a lecture by Dr Sarah Thomas ‘Curating ‘empire’ at Tate: Dissonance and British Art.