Global Legacies of Arts and Crafts

  • December 14 - 15, 2023
  • Bard Graduate Center

    38 West 86th Street
    New York, New York 10024
Ticket Price $0.00-$16.81 This event is now over
Description

Global Legacies of Arts and Crafts: A two-day research symposium organized by Antonia Behan (Queens University; BGC MA ’14, PhD ’21)

December 14 from 9am-5pm and December 15 from 9am-5pm

38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall

public.humanities@bgc.bard.edu

$15 General | $12 Seniors | Free for people with a college or museum ID, people with disabilities and caregivers, and BGC members

 

Inspired by the British designer, craftsman, poet, and socialist William Morris (1834–98), the Arts and Crafts movement was a varied and ambitious set of values and practices reacting against mid-nineteenth-century industrialization, capitalism, and imperialism. It asserted the social value of making, challenged the hierarchy of fine and decorative arts, defended the livelihoods of artisans, and promoted the preservation of skilled knowledge. But the ambition, pugnacity, and passion of the Arts and Crafts movement was not limited to a single place or time. Although Arts and Crafts is often regarded as quintessentially British, its setting within the context of empire cannot be ignored, nor can its vexed relation to the very systems of globalizing power that were its central concerns. This symposium takes a topic and a figure familiar to all audiences of traditional decorative arts and design, but opens these to a radically new, global, diverse, and innovative perspective.

 

THURSDAY DECEMBER 14

9:00–9:10 Welcome and Introductions

9:10–9:30 am Introduction: As It Is and As It Might Be

 

9:30–10:30 am Session 1: The Art of the People: Mingei its Colonial Legacies

 

From Eternal Beauty to Artistic Individuality: Arts and Crafts, Colonialism, and the Ceramics of Tomimoto Kenkichi and Hamada Shōji    

Meghen Jones, Alfred University

 

How ‘Pure’ Can a Crafted Work Be? A Post-Colonial View of the ‘International Arts and Crafts’ from a Taiwanese Perspective

Louise Yu-Jui Yang, University of York

10:30–11:00 coffee

11 am–12:30 pm Session 2: The Past is Not Dead: Central Europe and the Caucasus

 

The Arts & Crafts in Central Europe 1880-1930  

Paul Stirton, Bard Graduate Centre

 

To Tiflis and Beyond: Julijs Straume and Arts and Crafts in the Caucasus

Sohee Ryuk, Columbia University

 

The Turn Yet Again? Arts and Crafts Resonance in New Design from Central Europe

Michał Burdziński, Silesian Museum in Katowice

12:30-2 pm Break

2-2:45 pm Tour of SIGHTLINES: on Peace, Power & Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa (Bard Graduate Center Gallery)

3-3:30 pm Session 3: How Shall We Live, Then?: Economies and Education

“It is better to help them help themselves”: Craft Development Projects with the Florida
Seminole, 1930s–1960s
Amanda Thompson, Bard Graduate Center
___

Supported by:

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Faculty of Arts and Science, Queen's University, Canada

 

FRIDAY DECEMBER 15

9:00–9:10 Welcome and Introductions

9:10–10:30 am Session 4: The Earthly Paradise: Narrating Labour and Materials

 

Of Making, Makers and Magic: The Politics of Skillful Doing in Narratives of Enchantment

Siddharth Pandey, Fellow in Global Humanities, Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study ‘Global Dis:connect’ (LMU), Munich [virtual]

 

Of Making, Makers and Magic: The Politics of Skillful Doing in Narratives of Enchantment
Siddharth Pandey, Fellow in Global Humanities, Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study ‘Global Dis:connect’ (LMU), Munich
 

Truth to Global Resource Flows: An Ecocritical Perspective on Arts and Crafts Materials
Kaja Ninnis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

10:30–11:00 Coffee

11 am–12:30 pm Session 5: The Last Gift: Tradition, Change, and Collecting in the Middle East and Silk Road

 

Tradition and Modernity in the Middle East: Observations on the Production of Decorated Metalwork during and after World War I

Marcus Milwright, University of York

 

William Arnold Stewart’s arts and crafts teaching in Egypt, 1911-1930

Aurélie Petiot, University of Paris Nanterre

 

Silk Road Expeditions in their Arts and Crafts Context

Michelle C. Wang, Georgetown University

 

12:30–2:00 Break

2–3:30 pm Session 6: The Aims of Art: Arts and Crafts and Political Claims

 

“A terrible beauty is born”: Craft and Revolution in Ireland  

Joseph McBrinn, Belfast School of Art, Ulster University

 

Māori Arts and Crafts in Aotearoa New Zealand 1890-1940: An Indigenous legacy in the South Pacific?  

Conal MacCarthy, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University Wellington  

3:30-4:00 coffee

4:00–5:00 Hopes and Fears and Signs of Change: wrap-up discussion

4–5 pm Signs of Change: Discussion
Respondent: Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Yale University
 

Supported by:

Date & Time

Dec 14 - 15, 2023

Venue Details

Bard Graduate Center

38 West 86th Street
New York, New York 10024 Bard Graduate Center
Bard Graduate Center

Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.


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