Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Instructors: Ventura and Norberto Fabian
Learn how to paint Zapotec design motifs with visiting artists from Oaxaca, Mexico. The father-son team—Ventura and Norberto Fabian—continue the tradition of creating hand-carved and hand-painted wooden figures known as alebrijes. This folk art is rooted in traditional rural village life and is one of Mexico’s most popular crafts. Participants will select an original...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
This conference will explore the ways in which contemporary notions of disability are linked to concepts of citizenship and belonging. Leaders in advocacy, education, medicine, and politics will consider how ideas of community at the local, national, and international levels affect the understanding of and policies related to disability—and how this has manifested itself, in particular, in higher education.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium 105, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Public parks are a source of civic identity for the communities they serve – inclusivity and authenticity are crucial. Similarly, memorials are bastions of democratic exchange and act as repositories of our cultural past and evolution. Thomas Woltz will present projects from the portfolio of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW) that demonstrate the power of the firm’s research-based design to reframe our relationship with civic, ecological, and cultural systems within the public realm. Lastly, Thomas will present NBW projects that...
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
David Reich, Professor, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Senior Associate Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
Sweeping technological innovations in the field of genomics are enabling scientists to extract and analyze ancient...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Anna Von Mertens is an exhibited artist who uses the structures of quilting and drawing to explore the frontiers of human understanding. Her new exhibition "Measure" explores the life and work of Henrietta Leavitt, one of the women “computers” hired to study glass-plate astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory a century ago. Leavitt’s findings provided a unit of measurement for galactic distances. Reimagined in meticulous stitches and intricate graphite marks, Von Mertens examines our current understanding of the size and shape of...
Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium 105, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Why do design? What is it for? These are forward-looking questions for a creative discipline that seems more slippery to define than ever. In a world of dwindling natural resources, exhausted social and political systems, and an overload of information there are many urgent reasons to reimagine the design discipline, and there is a growing need to look at design education. Learning and unlearning should become part of an on-going educational practice. We need new proposals for how to organize society, how to structure our governments, how to...
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Christina Riggs, Professor of the History of Art and Archaeology, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
When Howard Carter found the sealed entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, he secured the services of archaeological photographer Harry Burton to document the site. Over the course of ten years, Burton produced more than 3,000 glass negatives of the tomb, its contents, and the many people—including Egyptian men, women, and children—who participated in the excavation. Christina Riggs will discuss how Burton’s photography helped create “King Tut” at a...
Menschel Hall, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Corinne Wasmuht (b. 1964) is considered one of the most important German painters of her generation. In this lecture, the artist will discuss her work, from her early naturalistic structures of the late 1980s to more recent large-scale oil paintings, which reflect her interest in digital imagery and the anonymity of public space.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
The Next in Science series provides an opportunity for early-career scientists whose creative, cross-disciplinary research is thematically linked to introduce their work to one another, to fellow scientists, and to nonspecialists from Harvard and the greater Boston area. The focus of this year’s program is in the study of evolution. In this program, two leading researchers will explore the genetic impact of Neanderthal interbreeding with modern humans and consider how people migrated, adapted, and mixed over the course of human history. Two...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Bonsai is the ancient Japanese method of growing and caring for a tree whose growth is restricted by the size of the shallow pot in which it is planted and by the pruning of its branches and roots. In this class, Glen Lord, who consults for the Arnold Arboretum’s bonsai (Japanese) and penjing (Chinese) collection of dwarf potted plants, will speak first about the history of bonsai. He will then demonstrate the methods employed in creating and caring for a bonsai. Participants will plant a tropical specimen and learn about basic pruning, styling...
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Irma Boom is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer who specializes in making books. After earning her B.F.A. in graphic design from the AKI Art Academy in Enschedé, she worked for five years at the Dutch government publishing and printing office in The Hague. In 1991 she founded ...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA
In this performance and discussion, “The Suffragists” captures the power and passion of American women’s fight for the vote through song. Created by the acclaimed singer-songwriter Shaina Taub, the musical tells the story of the last decade of the struggle through the rivalry between Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul. Taub’s musical gives voice to these women in ways that powerfully resonate in today’s political landscape. The performance will be followed by a multidisciplinary panel discussion.
Gund Hall, Stubbins Room 112, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Elisa Silva is director and founder of Enlace Arquitectura established in Caracas Venezuela 2007. Projects focus on raising awareness of spatial inequality and the urban environment through public space, the integration of informal settlements and community engagement in rural landscapes. Public space interventions in informal settlements through participatory methodologies are also...
Hunnewell Building and Lawn, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Engineering in the Fog --make your own glasses to create your up close and personal Fog for ages 8 and up. One adult may bring a maximum of three children; age suitability listed above after dates. Meet on the Hunnewell Building lawn to the south of the building. Free, drop in, no registration required.
Dana Greenhouse, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Learn about seed biology, embryo dormancy, and factors present in woody plant seeds. The class will focus on seed storage and various treatment techniques, including over-wintering and aftercare. Appropriate for those who have succeeded at growing some plants from seed and are ready for greater challenges. Post-class nurturing will be required. Fee $55 members; $68 non-members.
Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium 105, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
One hundred years after his birth, the prolific work of Roman architect Bruno Zevi continues to engage current problems in theory and criticism, and deserves to be revisited. From the publication of Towards an Organic Architecture, in 1945, to his monograph on Erik Gunnar Asplund published the very year of his death in 2000, many of his books have had an electrifying effect on architects and historians. Active as educator and as political activist, he was an engaged, charismatic...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA
To paraphrase Louis Pasteur, sometimes luck favors the prepared mind, as when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by noticing that mold growing accidentally in his lab seemed to kill bacteria. This 2018 Radcliffe Institute science symposium will focus on how scientists explore realities they cannot anticipate. Speakers from across the disciplines of modern science will present personal experiences and discuss how to train scientists, educators, and funders to foster the expertise and open-mindedness needed to reveal undiscovered aspects of the world around us.
Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Room 105, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Please join us for a conversation between visual artists Fritz Haeg and Nils Norman and Julieta González, Artistic Director of Museo Jumex. They will discuss their recent project Proposals for a Plaza at Museo Jumex. Proposals for a Plaza was commissioned as part of the series Agora: Blueprints for a Utopia, and the temporary sculptural installation invites the public to imagine and...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Sharon Hessney, Writer and Moderator of New York Times Learning Network "What's Going On in This Graph?"
Graphs can go a long way in conveying information that might otherwise take several paragraphs to explain. But it is easy to misread or not fully understand the content and context. In this participatory program, we will decipher several graphs based on data from Arnold Arboretum curators and scientists. We will also look at the data...