Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall Piper Auditorium
Generative AI does not create new images out of thin air; it generates images that have a “certain something” in common with a selection of images we have fed into it. This selection, often called a “dataset,” can be generic or custom-made; either way, Generative AI automates the imitation and replication of some of its common visual features, often known in the past as styles. Imitation was for centuries the backbone of the classical tradition in European art, and it was de facto banned by 20th-century modernism for many good reasons. As the rise of Generative AI is bringing the...
Kim Vaz-Deville is a professor of education at Xavier University of Louisiana. Her work in New Orleans studies focuses on the lives of African Americans from the early 20th century to the present, explicitly on their material and intangible culture. In this lecture, Vaz-Deville will draw on a decade of research to explore how African American masks produce awareness among Mardi Gras revelers of their community’s African and Afro-Caribbean heritage and shared global struggles.
Malkit Shoshan is a designer, author, and educator. She is the founding director of the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST), which initiates and develops projects at the intersection of architecture, urban planning and human rights. In her work, she uses spatial design tools to make visible systemic violence, engage with various publics to co-design alternatives that center social and environmental justice, and advocate for systemic change.
Potter and writer Mark Shapiro will talk about his research and co-curation of the exhibition Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw, at the New-York Historical Society (January–May 2023). Commeraw was a master craftsman who made some of the most iconic stoneware in early America. Born enslaved, he rose to prominence as a free Black entrepreneur, owning and operating a successful pottery, though for more than a century his racial identity would be...
Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Harvard Alumni Association welcome Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University president emerita; Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor; and founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute, to discuss her book, Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury. Faust’s reading will be followed by a conversation with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School; and professor of history, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences....
This lunchtime lecture is free. There is currently a waitlist for in-person attendance, register to attend via Zoom
Join Ceramics Program Instructor Jenny Peace and her coil building class for a lunchtime slideshow describing the two-week onggi workshop she attended in Icheon, South Korea. She will offer an overview of the large-scale coiling method she learned from onggi master Kwak Kyungtae, and share contact information with anyone who might be interested in traveling to Korea to learn about onggi first hand.
Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Join the Harvard Art Museums for a discussion between artist Yu-Wen Wu and curator of Chinese art Sarah Laursen. Wu’s subjectivity as an immigrant is central to her artwork. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Wu immigrated to the United States at an early age. Her experiences have shaped her work in areas of migration, examining issues of displacement, assimilation, and the shape of identity in a new country.
At the intersection of art, science, social and culture issues, and the natural world, Wu’s projects include large-scale drawings, site-specific video installations, community-engaged...
A presentation from 2023–2024 Mary I. Bunting Institute Fellow Alison C. Rollins
At Radcliffe, Rollins is completing her second poetry collection, titled "Black Bell," and a nonfiction essay collection of biomythology, titled "Outdoors." She will also develop a series of performance art pieces in conversation with Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time and historical examples of Black fugitivity such as Henry Box Brown and Lear Green, figures who, hidden in crates, shipped themselves from slaveholding states to free states. Thinking through frequencies...
A presentation from 2023–2024 Mary I. Bunting Institute Fellow Marcus Wicker
At Radcliffe, Wicker is completing "Dear Mothership," a book of poetry that uses speculative narrative, empathy, and a hip hop aesthetic to explore reparations and examine the confounding ways humans treat one another when empowered by history and inheritance. He will also begin work on a book of lyric essays about barbershops, Black music, and belonging.
Join curator Jen Thum for an exploration of works in the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine. Thum will share insights about the museums’ medical humanities program for radiologists—on which the exhibition is based—and what can be gleaned through close looking.
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi will present a lecture on the intersections of migration, narrative, and violence based on her seminal craft essay on the works of Yiyun Li, James Baldwin, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.
Join program assistant Shirley Hunt to explore the role of recorded music in Nam Jun Paik’s audiovisual work Electronic Opera #1. An accomplished musician and independent scholar, Hunt will share insights into the history, cultural context, and interpretation of musical material used in the creation of this artwork.
Johnson-Kulukundis Family Gallery, Byerly Hall, 8 Garden St., Cambridge
Join the artist Alia Farid for a tour of Water Stories: River Goddesses, Ancestral Rites, and Climate Crisis and a discussion of the artwork Chibayish, 2023. Chibayish is part of a larger group of works that Farid has developed since 2018, focused on the impact of extractive industries on southern Iraq and Kuwait's ecological and social fabric.
Join curatorial assistant Casey Monahan to explore how investigating the verso (reverse side) of a painting can sometimes help construct the history and provenance of a work. Monahan will share how details such as labels, numbers, and other elements that are normally “unseen” are essential for curators as they research and catalogue works in the collections.
Which colors did ancient Greek and Roman artists use, and how have we discovered their choices? What is polychromy, and how does it influence our understanding of the ancient world? This talk explores both the overt and covert colors within our ancient art collection, with a special emphasis on Greek vase paintings, marble sculpture, and Roman wall paintings.
How wild, really, is Albert Bierstadt’s wilderness in Rocky Mountains, "Lander’s Peak"? Curatorial intern Saffron Sener will discuss this American landscape.
Our galleries are full of stories—this series of talks gives visitors a chance to hear the best ones! The talks highlight new works on view, take a fresh look at old favorites, investigate artists’ materials and techniques, and reveal the latest discoveries by curators, conservators, fellows, visiting artists, technologists, and other contributors.
Join staff as they discuss and activate this experimental device from 1930 by László Moholy-Nagy, a Bauhaus pioneer.