HOME /

Events

    2022 May 28

    Cochineal: How Mexico Made the World See Red

    Repeats every day until Thu Apr 20 2023 .
    (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online

    Cochineal, a tiny insect found on certain species of Oaxacan cacti, was harvested for millennia by Indigenous peoples to dye fabrics a vibrant red color. But following the European invasion of the Americas in the sixteenth century, it became a widely coveted, globally traded commodity that transformed textiles and art, and made Mexico a center for technological innovation. Cochineal: How Mexico Made the World See Red explores how this Indigenous technology changed the world, becoming an international symbol of power, while simultaneously disenfranchising its discoverers.

    ... Read more about Cochineal: How Mexico Made the World See Red
    2022 Apr 19

    Inclusions: Imagining Justice on Harvard's Campus

    5:00pm to 6:00pm

    Location: 

    Office for the Arts at Harvard—Online

    Inclusions, an art installation created by Kiana Rawji '23, Cecilia Zhou '23, and Luke Reeve MDE '23, affirms that just as Harvard has shaped its students, so too have the students shaped Harvard; the student bricks will serve as records of formative contact between entities, expressions of individual identity, presence, and power in public space. During the month of April 2022, the bricks will be used to create a cohesive installation in Harvard Yard near Thayer Hall.

    Join Kiana and Cecilia, with special guest commentator Professor Tracy K. Smith and moderator...

    Read more about Inclusions: Imagining Justice on Harvard's Campus
    2022 Mar 03

    500 Years of Women Authors, Authorizing Themselves

    Repeats every week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday until Fri Mar 11 2022 .
    10:00am to 5:00pm

    10:00am to 5:00pm
    10:00am to 5:00pm
    10:00am to 5:00pm
    10:00am to 5:00pm
    10:00am to 5:00pm
    10:00am to 5:00pm

    Location: 

    Amy Lowell Room (2nd Floor), Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    Let us introduce you to some of the most infamous female authors you’ve never heard of who carved out cultural spaces for themselves. Our challenge to you: Remember their names. Share their stories. Rewrite history.

    Highlights include:

    • A copy of Phillis Wheatley's collection of poems autographed by the author

    • A mysterious ownership inscription by a medieval woman named "Johanna" in a copy of Jerome's Vitas Patrum

    • Mary Wroth's copy of Xenophon's Cyropaedia, bearing her cryptic monogram...

    Read more about 500 Years of Women Authors, Authorizing Themselves
    2022 Feb 01

    Clay—Modeling African Design

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Sun Nov 13 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On View:
    November 17, 2018–November 13, 2022
    University Collections Gallery, African Art, Harvard Art Museums

    This exhibition highlights artistic innovation and creativity in Africa as seen primarily through the traditions of ceramic arts from across the continent and over its long history. Countering the assumption that African arts and societies are largely unchanging and bound to traditions and customs, the remarkable diversity of objects and styles on display here tells a different story. A selection of more than 50 works on loan from the...

    Read more about Clay—Modeling African Design
    2022 Feb 01

    Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Wed Feb 1 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World explores how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society, driving innovations that had lasting impacts—even on the modern world.

    Make an advance reservation to visit the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

    ...

    Read more about Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World
    2022 Feb 01

    Muchos Méxicos: Crossroads of the Americas

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Thu Feb 2 (All day)

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 1 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Muchos Méxicos explores Mexico’s rich history as a site of human innovation, creativity and cultural diversity. Featuring Mexican objects from the Peabody Museum collections, this bilingual exhibit tells the story of Mexico as a multicultural and geographic crossroads—one where the exchange of resources, products, and ideas among Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas before the Spanish invasion, and then with cultures around the globe—have all created a vibrant nation.

    ...

    Read more about Muchos Méxicos: Crossroads of the Americas
    2022 Jan 22

    Himalayan Art: Art of the Divine Abode

    Sat Jan 22 (All day) to Sun May 8 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On View:
    January 22, 2022–May 8, 2022
    University Teaching Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

    Drawn from the museums’ rich Asian art collections, this installation complements a Harvard undergraduate course that explores the art of the Himalayan region, focusing on the major cultural centers such as the Kathmandu Valley and Buddhist sites across the Tibetan plateau, while examining the history of reception and imagination of the Himalayas in the west. The course is taught by Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art. In...

    Read more about Himalayan Art: Art of the Divine Abode
    2022 Jan 22

    Social Fabrics: Inscribed Textiles from Medieval Egyptian Tombs

    Sat Jan 22 (All day) to Sun May 8 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On View:
    January 22, 2022–May 8, 2022
    University Research Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

    From swaddling newborns to enshrouding the deceased, woven fabrics touch nearly every aspect of human existence. The textiles in this exhibition are particularly meaningful, for they tell a bigger story about political and social power, class, trade, and concerns for the afterlife during a transformative period in Egyptian history. In the medieval era, control of the region shifted repeatedly, as Egypt was subsumed under a sequence of empires—Byzantine,...

    Read more about Social Fabrics: Inscribed Textiles from Medieval Egyptian Tombs
    2021 Nov 04

    Virtual Student Guide Tour: This Land Is Whose Land?, with Jacqueline Zoeller

    8:00pm to 8:30pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums—Online

    On this tour commemorating Native American Heritage Month, Jacqueline Zoeller ’23 will contrast colonial visions of the Western U.S. landscape, such as Albert Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountains, “Lander’s Peak” (1863), with the realities lived and portrayed by Native American artists. Stops on the tour will include Diné artist Will Wilson’s Mexican Hat Disposal Cell (2020), a landscape photograph of Halchita, Utah, the Navajo...

    Read more about Virtual Student Guide Tour: This Land Is Whose Land?, with Jacqueline Zoeller
    2021 Sep 22

    Muchos Méxicos: Virtual Exhibition Preview and Conversation

    6:00pm to 7:15pm

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology—Online

    Join us for a virtual preview and conversation about the Muchos Méxicos exhibition! Three scholars who contributed to the making of the show will discuss their favorite objects, and how they each tell stories of exchange and innovation—as well as loss and perseverance—across time and space.

    Live interpretation available in English and Spanish.

    Learn more about and RSVP for this virtual event.

    Read more about Muchos Méxicos: Virtual Exhibition Preview and Conversation
    2020 Nov 20

    HMSC Connects! Celebrating Women

    Fri Nov 20 (All day) to Thu Dec 31 (All day)

    Location: 

    Online Event

    Virtual experiences connect the collections of the four Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. In HMSC Connects! Celebrating Women, go behind the scenes with women in academia while listening to the HMSC Connects! Podcast, discovering women’s work, Story Time videos, and coloring pages.

    Learn more about HMSC Connects! Celebrating Women

    Read more about HMSC Connects! Celebrating Women
    2020 Oct 12

    Listening to Wampanoag Voices: Beyond 1620

    Mon Oct 12 (All day) to Sat Oct 31 (All day)

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology—Online

    Four hundred years have passed since the Wampanoag Nation encountered English immigrants who settled on the shores of their land at Patuxet—now called Plymouth. Harvard University has had a relationship with the Wampanoag and other local tribal communities for nearly as long, establishing the Harvard Indian College on campus in 1655. In acknowledgment of this early history, the Peabody Museum has asked Wampanoag tribal members to reflect on collections spanning...

    Read more about Listening to Wampanoag Voices: Beyond 1620
    2020 Mar 07

    Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard’s Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology

    Sat Mar 7 (All day) to Sun Mar 7 (All day)

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    This exhibit explores how early Harvard scholars influenced the development of anthropology and archaeology in the Pacific region. Produced in collaboration with over thirty other museums around the world, Harvard’s contributing exhibit will feature historical images and objects from the Peabody collections, including intricately carved Fijian clubs, models of distinctive Pacific outriggers, and a striking example of Samoan bark cloth (siapo). Together they weave a compelling narrative about the ideas, people, and networks pivotal to both early understandings and ongoing studies...

    Read more about Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Harvard’s Early Endeavors in Oceanic Anthropology
    2020 Feb 14

    Exhibition: Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection

    Fri Feb 14 (All day) to Sun Jul 26 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Painting Edo—one of the largest exhibitions ever presented at the Harvard Art Museums—offers a window onto the supremely rich visual culture of Japan’s early modern era. Selected from the unparalleled collection of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg, the more than 120 works in the exhibition connect visitors with a seminal moment in the history of Japan, as the country settled into an era of peace under the warrior government of the shoguns and opened its doors to greater engagement with the outside world. The dizzying array of artistic lineages and studios active during the Edo...

    Read more about Exhibition: Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection
    2020 Feb 13

    Opening Celebration: Painting Edo

    5:00pm to 9:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join the Harvard Art Museums to celebrate the opening of Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection, on view from February 14–July 26, 2020.

    Be among the first to see over 120 works included in the Harvard Art Museums' latest show, which celebrates the rich visual culture of Japan's early modern era. The galleries are open late, and admission is free for...

    Read more about Opening Celebration: Painting Edo
    2019 Nov 16

    Exhibition: Resetting the Table: Food and Our Changing Tastes

    Sat Nov 16 (All day) to Sun Nov 28 (All day)

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Resetting the Table: Food and Our Changing Tastes explores food choices and eating habits in the United States, including the sometimes hidden, but always important, ways in which our tables are shaped by cultural, historical, political, and technological influences.

    One dinner served in 1910 will form the centerpiece—literally—of Resetting the Table. The historical and cultural roots of the foods on the menu, and the privileged context of their presentation, will be explored. Selections from ten University collections will reveal the long history...

    Read more about Exhibition: Resetting the Table: Food and Our Changing Tastes
    2019 Oct 20

    Virtual Reality Expedition to Ancient Israel

    12:00pm to 3:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Semitic Museum, 6 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    "Travel" in fifteen minutes to an archaeological site in Ashkelon, Israel to explore the first-ever excavation of a Philistine burial ground. For years archaeologists have searched for evidence of these Biblical people. Transport yourself to the center of 360° scenes of an archaeological expedition while your gallery facilitator explains what you are seeing. Borrow a device from the museum or download the virtual reality app on your smart phone and bring it to place in a 3D viewer at the museum for an immersive experience.

    ...

    Read more about Virtual Reality Expedition to Ancient Israel
    2019 Jun 26

    Harvard Art Museums: Cambridge Open Archives

    12:00pm to 2:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, Art Study Center, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    The Harvard Art Museums Archives is participating in Cambridge Open Archives, an annual event that offers the rare chance to visit a number of unique archives and collecting agencies in Cambridge. In the Art Study Center, select archival photographs, correspondence, and objects documenting the history of the museums’ teaching mission and its wider impact in the United States will be on display for close examination. Archives staff will be on hand to share the stories behind the materials.

    Cost: Free with museums admission (note that admission is always free...

    Read more about Harvard Art Museums: Cambridge Open Archives
    2019 Mar 26

    Exhibition Opening: Beauties

    5:00pm

    Location: 

    Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge

    Beauties is a newly commissioned exhibition by noted contemporary American sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist Willie Cole. He is known for using irons and ironing as central motifs in his work for 30 years, evoking everything from African masks to slave ship diagrams to the routines of domestic servitude. In this special installation, the gallery will be lined with haunting, full-scale prints made from crushed and hammered ironing boards, allowing visitors to confront the contradictory energies running through them.

    ...

    Read more about Exhibition Opening: Beauties

Pages