Events

    Artist Talk and Opening Reception for This Machine Creates Opacities

    Location: 

    Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join us for an Artist Talk and Opening Reception to celebrate the opening of This Machine Creates Opacities: Robert Fulton, Renée Green, Pierre Huyghe, and Pope.L.

    Artist Pope.L will present an artist talk that touches on his project Corbu Pops, which was originally commissioned for the Carpenter Center’s level 1 space in 2009. Various installation elements of this pivotal work have been restaged for This Machine Creates Opacities.

    Following the conversation, there will be a reception and community dinner in the sunken terrace on Level 1...

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    T. S. Eliot Memorial Reading: Kim Hyesoon with Don Mee Choi

    Location: 

    Online or at Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    The Woodberry Poetry Room's 2023 Eliot Memorial Reading will honor one of the pre-eminent voices in South Korean poetry and the trailblazing author of fourteen inimitable books of poetry: Kim, Hyesoon.

    Kim will read with her long-time translator -- the award-winning poet Don Mee Choi. Introductory remarks will be delivered by acclaimed poet, translator, and Harvard graduate Jack Jung.

    In-Person Attendance: Edison Newman Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University, at 6:00pm. Free and open to the public. A book-signing provided by Grolier Poetry...

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    La Belle Epoque: Debussy and Ravel at the Harvard Art Museums

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Please join us for an afternoon in the light-filled Calderwood Courtyard to experience chamber music performances inspired by late 19th- and early 20th-century paintings in the museums’ collections. Cellist Guy Fishman, violinist Renée Hemsing, and pianist Renana Gutman will perform sonatas by Claude Debussy and a piano trio by Maurice Ravel.

    ...

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    Touch Tour: Ancient Mesopotamia

    Location: 

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

    Available for blind and visually impaired visitors, this tour explores the From Stone to Silicone exhibition featuring ancient Mesopotamia. Touchable replicas are coupled with description to spark discussion about the sculpted art in the Assyrian palace of King Ashurnasirpal II.

    Registration required at least one week in advance. Service animals are welcome.
    Also available by appointment select Monday–Fridays from 2:00pm–3:00pm or 3:00pm–4:00pm.

    ...

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    2023 Dec 17

    Peabody Museum Tours by Harvard Students

    Repeats every week on Sunday, Friday, Saturday until Sun Apr 21 2024 except Fri Nov 24 2023, Sat Nov 25 2023, Sun Nov 26 2023.
    (All day)

    Location: 

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

    Tours by Harvard students connect visitors with the research, teaching, and Indigenous engagement surrounding the cultural heritage in the museum’s care. How do items come to the museum? Who accesses them and how do items return home?

    Visitors may drop in at the scheduled times. No reservation is required. Tours meet in the lobby and last approximately 45 minutes. Tours for groups of ten or more may be scheduled at these and other times.

    Offered on: Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2:00pm and Sundays at 11:00am
    Regular museum admission...

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    Michele De Lucchi, "Earth Stations – Future Sharing Architectures"

    Location: 

    Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium (48 Quincy St., Cambridge)

    Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design for a lecture presented by architect Michele De Lucchi:

    "What can we as architects do for the world to come? We can use eco-friendly materials, and we can adopt the most sophisticated technologies, but if we do not get used to thinking with a sustainability mindset, building the greenest house in the world will not make the slightest difference, because, ultimately, we will continue to behave like irresponsible consumers. Consequently, we must intervene with a new way of thinking, one born today for the world of tomorrow. By attending...

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    Exchanging Notes: Songs and Stories from Somerville and Tbilisi

    Location: 

    Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., Cambridge

    The Program on Georgian Studies at Harvard University's Davis Center and the Somerville Arts Council present "Exchanging Notes," a cross-cultural exchange between Georgian and U.S. artists. In June, the project took Owen Thomas, a Somerville resident and writer, and Max Evard, the music director at Somerville High School, to the country of Georgia, where they collaborated with their Georgian counterparts, musician Aleksandre Kharanauli and writer and poet Nana Abuladze.

    Each duo spent the summer working remotely on their artistic projects and, this September, the Georgians are...

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    Harvard Art Museums at Night

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join us for an evening of art, fun, food, and more! This event is free and open to everyone.

    Gather with friends and mingle inside our Italian-inspired courtyard while taking in the smooth sounds from DJ C-Zone. Browse the museum shop and chat over a snack or drink for purchase from local vendors. And of course, wander the galleries to take in our world-class art collections—over 50 galleries to explore! Don’t forget to check out the current exhibitions.

    ...

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    Bookmaking: Irma Boom and Rem Koolhaas

    Location: 

    Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium (48 Quincy St., Cambridge)

    The exhibition The Book in the Age of … presents the outcomes of an intensive research seminar on the history and future of the book co-taught by Irma Boom, Phillip Denny, and Rem Koolhaas at the GSD in the spring of 2023. Over the course of the semester, the seminar assembled a collective history of the book and developed a dozen original conjectures for its future evolution. Drawing on the experiments in the classroom, and in celebration of the exhibition, Boom and Koolhaas will come together to deliver a lecture on the book in the age of globalization.

    ...

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    Bohemian Tea Party: Poetry Room Homecoming

    Location: 

    Woodberry Poetry Room (Lamont Library, Room 330)

    Join us for our 2nd annual homecoming event, as we kickoff an exciting season of public programs and activities at the Woodberry Poetry Room. The festivities will include welcoming this year's Creative Fellow Rosa Alcalá on her first day in residence at the Poetry Room. Alcalá will give us a sneak preview of her translation project and lead us in a brief writing exercise on the Ashbery Typewriter.

    We'll also preview our Fall 2023 season, tell you a bit more about our Community Megaphone activities, and introduce you to fellow poets, writers, scholars, and educators in the...

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    Curator-Led Exhibition Tour: At the Limits of the Book

    Location: 

    Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    Join exhibition curator and Houghton librarian Molly Schwartzburg for a special guided tour of At the Limits of the Book: Bindings from the Houghton Library Collections. This 45-minute tour will include discussion of the themes of the exhibition, highlights from the materials on display, and ample time for participant questions.

    Learn more and RSVP.

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    "Surveillance: From Vision to Data" Exhibit Talk

    Location: 

    Harvard Science Center, Room 252, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge

    Take a closer look at Surveillance: From Vision to Data, on view at Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. Join the curators for a talk introducing select objects, the multiple legacies of surveillance through data, and critical artworks that have resisted now ubiquitous data-driven surveillance. Then tour the exhibit to see for yourself how data shapes the nature of surveillance.

    Part of the 2023 Cambridge Science Festival.

    ...

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    Spotlight Tour: Out of This World, with Arielle Frommer '25

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On this tour, Arielle Frommer ’25 will explore the intersection of art and astronomy in three works: Light Prop for an Electric Stage [Light-Space Modulator] (1930), a reflective kinetic sculpture by László Moholy-Nagy, who had been a professor at the Bauhaus in Germany; Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (datable to about 1292), an iconic Buddhist sculpture from Japan; and The Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train (1877), a large canvas that Claude Monet painted in Paris, soon after he began painting in the Impressionist style.

    An astrophysics student,...

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    Spotlight Tour: Sensing the Divine, with Hanna Carney '25

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On this tour, Hanna Carney ’25 will look at multisensory religious experiences as portrayed in art and the significant role they play in people’s lives. Featured works include a bronze ritual wine vessel (late 11th–early 10th century BCE), cast in China during the Zhou dynasty, and The Miracle of the Sacred Fire, Church of the Holy Sepulchre (1892–99), an ambitious painting by Englishman William Holman Hunt, based on his multiple trips to the Holy Land. Emerging from Carney’s studies of comparative religion and the history of art and architecture, the tour encourages visitors to...

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    Teen Saturdays at the Museum! / ¡Sábados de Jóvenes en el Museo!

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History (26 Oxford Street) and Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology (11 Divinity Avenue)

    Teen Saturdays is designed for Latino high school students. Workshops delve into four fascinating traditional celebrations from Central America. Participants will embark on a journey to discover diverse festivals that shape societies in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. During each workshop, teenagers will visit exhibits, use art and language to create original works, and challenge their sense of what a tradition can be through discussion. We will learn about the historical and social contexts behind these festivities, their cultural symbolism, and the values they embody...

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    Exhibition Tour: Seeing in Art and Medicine

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join curators Jen Thum and Laura Muir for a tour of the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine, on view from September 2 to December 30, 2023. Thum and Muir will share insights about the museums’ medical humanities program for radiologists—on which the exhibition is based—the curatorial process, and what can be gleaned through close looking.

    Learn more and RSVP...

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    The Crossing: "Crickets in our Backyard"

    Location: 

    Paine Hall (Harvard Music Department Building), 3 Oxford St., Cambridge

    U.S. Poet Laureate and 1987 Pulitzer winner Rita Dove has been describing our world in language that pulls back the curtain on how we love and gives breathtaking testimony to violence. Her words are set to music by 2021 Pulitzer winner Tania León in a new work for MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase and The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally. The work promises relevance, virtuosity, and a lasting life as a significant addition to the canon of new music commissioned by The Crossing.

    Also on the program is a substantial new work from Ayanna Woods, the culminating project of her year-...

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    2023 Oct 26

    Exhibition: "Surveillance: From Vision to Data"

    11:00am to 4:00pm

    Location: 

    Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge

    This timely exhibit considers surveillance beyond the realm of cameras and their watchers, exposing the profound influence of data. Learn about the historical instruments that have been used to transform individuals and landscapes into data. Uncover how powerful entities, from colonial empires to U.S. intelligence agencies, have harnessed surveillance data to produce and perpetuate hierarchies of human difference. Immerse yourself in interactive critical artworks that challenge and resist surveillance through data. Look beyond vision and toward data to reveal an elusive, and now...

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