The MassQ Ball 2022: Origin will feature the diverse artistic expressions of Boston’s communities of color. Interact with the landscape in new and creative ways, transform into a walking work of art through the practice of MassQing (a ritual application of paint to the face derived from ancient traditions of body decoration), and enjoy performances and art work by Boston cultural artists including:
Hemlock Hill and Conifer Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Led by Bengali culture worker Pampi, this audience participatory workshop allows attendees to weave love letters into hand-crafted ceremonial vessels for their loved ones. Vessels will be fashioned out of natural materials sourced from the Arboretum grounds and displayed in the MassQ Ball on July 9.
Seventeenth-century artist Simon de Vlieger was one of many Dutch draftsmen who captured panoramas of the cities and towns that surrounded them. In his observed and accurate drawing of Weesp, a municipality located outside Amsterdam on the river Vecht, aspects of this recognizable view speak to larger questions of commerce and the environment. Join curatorial research associate Susan Anderson to discover these details within the broader artistic and cultural milieu of landscape drawing in the Dutch Republic.
Curator Sara Schechner, from Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, and Lynette Roth, curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, will team up to explore a 120-year-old Zeiss photographic microscope. The curators will look at the assemblage of its various parts and share with visitors what they tell us about how scientists work with such a microscope. Its diverse components, housed in a wooden case, reveal not only the technical challenges of taking photographs through a microscope lens, but also the instrument’s inherent social, cultural, and aesthetic connections....
Seventeenth-century Dutch artists, such as Abraham Bloemaert, Hendrick Avercamp, and Albert Cuyp, achieved coloristic effects through a variety of means. Join curator Joachim Homann in an exploration of colorful papers, inks, and washes from artists of the Dutch Republic.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge
Latino/a/x teens in the Hear Me Out/Escúchame project exhibit a group artwork that challenges stereotypes. What is important to know about Salvadoran or Honduran culture? What is overlooked in Mexican, Colombian, or Guatemalan culture? Drop in to see their response, and create “light-up” postcards or an art piece about your identity with simple art materials. Sketch and try other hands-on activities. Take your place with us and share how you want to be represented.
Limited metered parking available on Oxford Street or...
The talk will highlight amateur botanist Ella Hurd and the process she used to make her cyanotypes. It will also explore the importance of camera-less photography to scientific research and documentation in the 19th century.
Join curator Horace D. Ballard for fresh perspective on two of the museums’ iconic portraits of George Washington through the meaning of gesture and the materialities of fashion. Inspired by Ballard’s recent research on Washington and his rewriting of the portraits’ gallery labels, the talk will explore the important role artists played in shaping the nation’s sense of self after the partisan politics of the Revolutionary War.
The Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP) and the Harvard Art Museums present a lecture by author David Treuer.
David Treuer, an Ojibwe Indian, will offer a fresh and in-depth perspective on the current state of affairs for Native and Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Drawing from his experience growing up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota and as an accomplished academic, Treuer’s work includes both nonfiction and fiction.
Join Ben Sibson, a graduate student at Harvard in human evolutionary biology, for a conversation about how art can enhance our understanding of the evolution of human health. Looking at works of art installed in the University Study Gallery this semester for the undergraduate course Human Evolution and Human Health, Sibson will show how the objects provide useful information about the physical activities performed by people across time and space, as well as the foods they ate, the clothes they wore, and the spaces where they lived.
Experience an epic day of archaeological events with the family! Activities are scattered across two museums so explore Native North American, Central American, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Mediterranean archaeology. Throw a spear with a spear thrower. Talk to student archaeologists who excavate in locations around the world.
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...
Dovlatov follows a few days in the life of famed Soviet writer, Sergei Dovlatov, on the eve of his friend's, future Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky, emigration in 1971. Sergei is determined to stay and lead a normal life with his wife Elena and daughter Katya, however, his manuscripts are regularly rejected by the official media as his point of view is deemed undesirable.
Dovlatov premiered at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival, where it was awarded a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for costume and production design. Directed by...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
The new geopolitical environment taking shape in many parts of the world tends toward increasing authoritarianism and nationalistic competition. In this lecture, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, an international human rights advocate and the former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, will argue that the world’s people deserve better. Despite the demagoguery and isolationism that some leaders are pursuing, he believes it is possible to pursue thoughtful diplomacy and a system of connectivity, coalitions, and partnerships to reform institutions and change polices.
Fellow Jen Thum explores the basics of ancient Egyptian representation, including why their bodies seem to "walk like an Egyptian."
Free with museum admission. Gallery talks are limited to 15 people and tickets are required. Ten minutes before each talk, tickets will become available at the admissions desk.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Chanan Tigay is an award-winning journalist and nonfiction writer who has covered the Middle East, 9/11, and the United Nations for such outlets as AFP, the Atlantic, GQ, and the New Yorker. In this lecture, Tigay will talk about his first book, The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible, which tells the story of the oldest Bible in the world, how its outing as a fraud led to a scandalous death, and why archaeologists now believe it was real—if only they could find it. In addition to the story of this controversial Bible, Tigay will speak about his own hunt for the...
Between the paws of the great Sphinx is the Dream Stela, a monument which describes how a young prince fell asleep in the shadow of the Sphinx by the Giza Pyramids. Visitors to the Harvard Semitic Museum galleries will be able to experience the iconic Sphinx and its Dream Stela in 3D augmented reality.
A gallery facilitator will use a tablet to allow the Sphinx to loom above and around a real life-size cast of the monumental stela. With a tap, the ancient hieroglyphs will be highlighted and translated into English. Another tap to adjust the timeline later, and a pyramid will...
Gund Hall, 485 Broadway Lecture Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
This lecture, in memorium of James Sloss Ackerman, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Art Emeritus, is sponsored by the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
James Sloss Ackerman was born in 1919 in San Francisco. At Yale University his professor, Henri Focillon, wrote to him “Remain faithful to our studies for which you are so well suited.” Ackerman's graduate work focusing on Renaissance architecture was guided by Richard Krautheimer and Erwin Panofsky at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His...
"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.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a lecture delivered by Philip Ursprung, Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.
For the 100th birthday of Bauhaus, the German State supports two new museums, several exhibitions, and many celebrations. However, the current celebrations repress the fact that the Bauhaus in the late 20th century was criticized for its formalism and dogmatic design education. And while a...
