2021 Oct 25
The Climate of Grief
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Divinity School—Online
This conversation is part of the series "Weather Reports: The Climate of Now." The featured speaker is poet Victoria Chang.
Victoria Chang writes in her New York Times Notable Book of 2020, Obit, “I always knew that grief was something I could smell. But I didn’t know that it’s not actually a noun but a verb. That it moves.” After the deaths of her parents, she refused to write elegies; instead, Chang wrote poetic obituaries of the beautiful, broken world that surrounds her (many see them...
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2021 Oct 25
Rachel Dorothy Tanur Memorial Lecture: Andrea Roberts, “The Community Core: Making and Keeping Place Heritage in Texas’s Freedom Colonies”
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
In Texas’ freedom colonies — African American settlements founded 1866-1930 — descendants of community founders engage in heritage conservation by keeping folklife, sacred rituals, and other cultural expressions that sustain communities’ Black sense of place. However, rural, vernacular African American placekeeping strategies are rarely framed in planning and architectural history as transgressive or expressions of Black liberation.
Presenting an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Never Sell the Land, Dr. Roberts shares case studies in which descendants of Deep East...
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2021 Oct 23
The Art and Science of Frogs
10:30am to 12:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online
Explore the rich diversity of frogs by observing and sketching 3D models printed from Harvard’s research collections. Artist and educator, Erica Beade, will introduce techniques for achieving accurate shapes and capturing volume in your drawings, while herpetologist and researcher, Dr. Mara Laslo, will explain how evolution has generated their amazing diversity. Groups will be limited to twelve, allowing ample time for questions and discussion.
Cost: $40 for members, $45 for nonmembers.
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2021 Oct 22
Decoding AI: The Science, Policies, Applications, and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
10:00am to 4:20pm
Location: 
Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly permeating many facets of our lives, raising both hope and concern about possibilities for our future. AI is transforming domains as disparate as science, medicine, commerce, government, law, the military, and the arts, and in doing so, it is forcing us to grapple with practical, political, and philosophical questions about humans and the nature of human interaction. The Harvard Radcliffe Institute Science Symposium, featuring speakers from disparate disciplines and industries, will examine AI, its impact, and its ethics by exploring current and...
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2021 Oct 21
Jane Bennett, “Out for a Walk in the Middle Voice”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
It begins with two strolls: one by the 19th-century naturalist Henry Thoreau, who finds himself inscribed by vegetal forms and powers; and one by Paul Klee's graphic line as it enlists the energies of a human hand to become a doodle. These two walks expose the radical entanglement of human and nonhuman activities, and they call for a lexicon able to acknowledge such a trans-specied kind of agency.
How to bespeak such joint efforts in ways that give the nonhuman its due? What grammar, syntax, and verbal forms best acknowledge the contributions of human, animal, vegetal, mineral...
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2021 Oct 20
The Art of Making Day of the Dead Altars
6:00pm to 7:15pm
Location: 
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology—Online
Live interpretation in English and Spanish
Interpretación en vivo en inglés y español
Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican tradition that seeks to commemorate and celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed away. The creation of an altar is a key component of this celebration, which is both bittersweet and joyful. In this program, Los Angeles-based artist, educator, and altarista Ofelia Esparza will share her philosophy and approach to making altars and to keeping Día de los Muertos alive in the U.S. She will be joined by her daughter,...
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2021 Oct 20
“We know and walk together”: Contemporary Indigenous Art in Brazil
12:00pm to 1:15pm
Location: 
Harvard Museums of Science & Culture—Online
This event will be held in Portuguese with simultaneous English translation.
One of the most exciting developments in Brazilian art and art history today is the emergence of Indigenous self-representation. The growing presence of Indigenous artists and art curators in exhibitions and museums in the country challenges traditional narratives and modes of display as it generates new spaces for the silenced voices of the over three-hundred Indigenous ethnic groups that inhabit the territories of Brazil. In 2017, the Rio de Janeiro Museum (MAR) organized the exhibition...
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2021 Oct 20
Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine
12:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online
Amelia M. Glaser is an associate professor of literature at UC San Diego and the author of Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine, about leftist Yiddish poets who wrote about the struggles of non-Jewish ethnic minorities in the 1930s. Focusing on performative genres such as music, comedy, film, theater, and highly visible poetic performance, Glaser is working on a new book that will examine how artists have re-envisioned the history and future of Ukraine since the 2014 “Maidan” revolution. Join her to learn more about her book and her...
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2021 Oct 20
Kenzo Tange Lecture: Christ & Gantenbein and OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen, interviewed by Jeannette Kuo
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for an interview by Jeannette Kuo (Assistant Professor in Practice at Harvard GSD and founding partner of KARAMUK KUO) with Swiss architects Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, and OFFICE founders Kersten Geers and David Van Severen.
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2021 Oct 19
Margaret McCurry Lectureship in the Design Arts: Jade Kake, “Indigenous Urbanism”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
Jade Kake (Ngāpuhi, Te Arawa, Te Whakatōhea) leads a small team at Matakohe Architecture + Urbanism, a kaupapa Māori design studio based in Whangārei in the Te Tai Tokerau region of Aotearoa New Zealand. The architectural department of the studio is focused on working primarily with Māori community clients on their papakāinga, marae, commercial and community projects, whilst the pūrākau (culture narrative) integration strand focuses on working to facilitate meaningful hapū participation in the design of major civic, commercial and education projects within their rohe. Matakohe are also...
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2021 Oct 14
Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture: Jamaica Kincaid
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
Jamaica Kincaid is a widely acclaimed and fiercely original writer known for her novels, short stories, and essays, including writings on her life as a gardener. She was also staff writer for the New Yorker from 1973 to 1996 and has been a contributor for the Village Voice.
She is beloved by generations of readers who discovered her fiction, including Annie John and “Girl,” in high school and is admired by critics for her daring and unorthodox body of work. Answering claims that her fiction and essays are characterized by anger, Kincaid says, “The...
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2021 Oct 12
Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture: Zoe Leonard with José Esparza Chong Cuy
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
The artist Zoe Leonard will present a work in progress titled Al Rio/To the River and will engage in conversation about the project with curator José Esparza Chong Cuy.
Al Rio/To the River is a large-scale photographic project centered on the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, in particular the 1,200-mile section of the river that is used to demarcate the international boundary between Mexico and the United States. Begun in 2016 and currently still a work in progress, the work engages in a sustained observation of the water, surrounding landscape, and built environment,...
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2021 Oct 08
Black in Design 2021: “Black Matter”
Fri Oct 8 (All day) to Sun Oct 10 (All day)
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
The Black in Design conference, organized by the Harvard Graduate School of Design African American Student Union, recognizes the contributions of the African diaspora to the design fields and promotes discourse around the agency of the design professions to address and dismantle the institutional barriers faced by our communities. The fourth biannual conference, Black Matter, will take place virtually on October 8-10, 2021.
Black Matter celebrates the cultivation of...
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2021 Oct 07
American Women and the Ongoing Battle to Save Democracy
4:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online
Jennifer Rubin, the author of Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump (William Morrow, 2021) and a Washington Post opinion writer, will join Michel Martin, weekend host of NPR’s All Things Considered, in a conversation about the persistent threat to American democracy and the central role women from across the political spectrum played in opposing and ultimately defeating Trump. Rubin will discuss how American women redefined US politics and, looking ahead, will examine women’s importance to defending the rule of law and multiracial democracy.
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2021 Oct 06
Airbrush, Instamatics, and Funk: Art, Pop, and New York City’s Long 1970s
12:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Radcliffe Institute—Online
A presentation from 2021–2022 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow Uri McMillan.
Uri McMillan, an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies and Department of English at UCLA, is a cultural historian who researches and writes in the interstices between black cultural studies, performance studies, queer theory, and contemporary art. He is writing a book about the effervescent artistic practices and networks of affiliation of three artists living and working in 1970s New York City: the Jamaican American visual artist Grace Jones, the Nuyorican illustrator Antonio...
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2021 Oct 05
Loeb Lecture: Reginald Dwayne Betts, “Felon: A play; A discourse”
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
From the speaker, Reginald Dwayne Betts:
"Felon: An America Washi Tale is about re-imagining paper. A solo performance that begins with the pages of a book being slid into a cell, traverses stoves made of toilet paper, kites from a father, handwritten affidavits, legal complaints, handmade paper, certificates of pardon, and a 1,000 squares fashioned from the clothing of men serving life sentences, the variety of papers that reveals what is possible and burdened by prison. Here, I weave traditional theater, poetry, fine art, and Japanese paper making aesthetic...
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2021 Oct 05
Monuments Reimagined: Public Art in Our Communities
4:00pm to 5:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Ed Portal—Online
Join policy makers, urban designers, and artists in Boston and Cambridge for a discussion about the future of public art!
Public art has the potential to make a community a more vibrant and welcoming place. Free and accessible to all, it also has the power to provoke debate about our shared cultural experience. As engaged citizens call for the removal of certain public monuments that evoke harmful systems, the conversation about the role of public art in our communities gains momentum.
On October 5, join City of Boston Chief of Arts & Culture Kara Elliott-Ortega...
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2021 Oct 05
Art Talk Live: A Sea Shell off the Sea Shore: Van der Ast’s Feathered Cone Shell
12:30pm to 1:00pm
Location: 
Harvard Art Museums—Online
In this intricate drawing, 17th-century Dutch artist Balthasar van der Ast captured the natural beauty of a “feathered cone”—the discarded shell of a sea snail indigenous to the Indo-Pacific. Join curatorial fellow Joanna Seidenstein as she explores the histories of global trade and colonization behind this work and the curatorial questions that have come up in preparation for its display.
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2021 Oct 04
Spiro Pollalis, “Sustainability and Climate Change: From Science to Design”
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: 
Harvard Graduate School of Design—Online
The upcoming national investment in infrastructure is most welcomed; it will add jobs and stimulate the economy. However, it is imperative for the infrastructure to be sustainable, resilient, and mitigate climate change. How can that be ensured?
Since its founding in 2008, the research at the Zofnass Program has focused on providing tools for designers and planners to measure the sustainability and resilience of infrastructure. Recently, the focus is on expanding the tools for mitigating climate change. Today, the outcome of the Zofnass Program empowers both sides: the design...
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2021 Sep 30
Learning from Performers: Joey and Faith Soloway
4:00pm
Location: 
Office for the Arts at Harvard—Online
A discussion with siblings Joey Soloway and Faith Soloway who collaborated on the Emmy Award-winning TV series Transparent. This event is in partnership with the Office for BGLTQ Student Life.
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