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.
Join us for a discussion featuring leading activists and scholars working toward menstrual justice. The program will open the exhibition Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity.
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...
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...
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.
For the first time in the museum’s history, women who labored in the collections, offices, and labs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in the late 19th century are being revealed in a unique online exhibit from the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. The exhibit is curated by Reed Gochberg, Assistant Director of Studies and a Lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University.
Women like Elizabeth Hodges Clark, Elizabeth Bangs Bryant, and Elvira Wood persevered diligently behind-the-scenes, gaining unparalleled expertise in what were previously thought to be men’...
"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 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...
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138
In the 1950s, the Cambridge-based Marshall family launched a groundbreaking effort to document the rapidly changing lives of Kalahari hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa. Explore the complex photographic history and the power of images to create and break stereotypes.
Free for Massachusetts residents every Sunday morning (year-round) from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm and on Wednesdays from 3:00 pm...
The Harvard Semitic Museum is reimagining its grand third-floor atrium gallery, featuring the arts of ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). This... Read more about From Stone to Silicone
