This Sunday, June 2nd we will be hosting our popular Victorian art of memorial hair jewelry class where students will learn to make--and leave with their very own!--piece of Victorian-inspired memorial hair jewelry. The class was inspired by our love of Victorian memorial hair jewelry, an especially beautiful expression of the Victorian cult of mourning in which he hair of the (often deceased) beloved was used in a decorative fashion to create a memorial or commemorative keepsake.
On June 1st--the night before this class--we will be hosting a Coney Island Mermaid Parade benefit party. All proceeds from this special "Mermaids of the Gowanus" evening will go towards Coney Island USA's Kickstarter campaign to save this year's Hurricane Sandy-endangered annual parade. The event will feature burlesque, belly dancing and a silent auction. Due to space limitations, tickets must be pre-purchased; details on that below.
If this does not interest: on Thursday, June 13, we will host Denny Daniel of The Museum of Interesting Things for a demonstration antique quack medical devices from his collection, while on Thursday, June 6 we will have an illustrated lecture with professor Eric G Wilson about the history and science of "morbid curiosity" (June 6). We also have a new taxidermy class: Guinea Pig Taxidermy Class with Rogue Taxidermist Katie Innamorato on Sunday, June 9, and a newly added Bat Dome Workshop (Sunday, June 16) as well as a variety of classes in taxidermy, anthropomorphic insect shadow boxes, and Dance of Death linocuts.
Also, for UK-based readers, don't miss our special 2-month series of events, workshops, special backstage tours, screenings and spectacles surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture beginning this Sunday, June 2, and running through July 25 at The Last Tuesday Society in London.
Full details for all follow. Hope to see you at one or more of these terrific events!
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Morbid Anatomy Presents: Mermaids of the Gowanus: A Benefit Variety Show for the Coney Island Mermaid ParadeDate: Saturday, June 1st
Time: 7pm
Admission: $15
Free Crispin Cider from 7 to 9.30
Very limited space; must pre-purchase ticket to attend: http://mermaidsofthegowanus.bpt.me/
Superstorm Sandy has damaged the seashore and so much of our beloved Coney Island—let’s not let her rain on our Mermaid Parade! As an attempt to give a boost to Coney Island USA's Kickstarter campaign before the deadline, Morbid Anatomy invites all you sea creatures for a night of wonders in our toxic canal!
Come and join us for decadent burlesque and sideshow hosted by the Lady Aye, with legendary performer Todd Robbins, Miss Cherry Delight, Alfie Bunz, Charles Stunning, Heather Whatever, theatrical belly-dance company Desert Sin, and a silent auction featuring donations from James Taylor (Shocked and Amazed!), taxidermist Wilder Duncan, photographer J.R Pepper, Shannon Taggart and many more!
Silent auction is cash only.
the Gowanus: A Benefit Variety Show for the Coney Island Mermaid Parade
Date: Sunday, June 2
Time: 12-4 PM
Admission: $75
***Must pre-order tickets here: http://victorianmourningjewelry.bpt.me
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
Hair
jewelry was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began
in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian
Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal
lockets or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class
will explore a modern take on the genre.
The technique of "palette
working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored
and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning
iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or
deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner.
Students
are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or
feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be
self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually
happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair
is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave
class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create
future projects.
Karen Bachmann is a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany and Co. She is a Professor in the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled Hairy Secrets:... In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock.
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Morbid Curiosity, or Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look AwayAn Illustrated Lecture and Book Signing with author Eric G. Wilson
Date: Thursday, June 6
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
Produced by Morbid Anatomy
"Why can’t we look away? Whether we admit it or not, we’re fascinated by evil. Dark fantasies, morbid curiosities, Schadenfreude: As conventional wisdom has it, these are the symptoms of our wicked side, and we succumb to them at our own peril. But we’re still compelled to look whenever we pass a grisly accident on the highway, and there’s no slaking our thirst for gory entertainments like horror movies and police procedurals. What makes these spectacles so irresistible? Author Eric G. Wilson attempts to discover the source of our morbid fascinations, drawing on the findings of biologists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, and artists. A professor of English with a penchant for Poe as well as a lifelong student of the macabre, Wilson believes there’s something nourishing in darkness. He believes that to repress death is to lose the feeling of life, and that a closeness to death discloses our most fertile energies.
Eric G Wilson is Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University and author of several books that explore the power of life's darker sides, including Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look Away; Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy; and The Mercy of Eternity: A Memoir of Depression and Grace.
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Guinea Pig Taxidermy Class - Intro to Basic Taxidermy with Rogue Taxidermist Katie InnamoratoDate: Sunday, June 9Time: 12 – 6:30 PM
Price: $150
Email: katie.innamorato(at)gmail(dot)com or afterlifeanatomy(at)gmail(dot)com to sign up.
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
This class will introduce students to the process and techniques behind basic taxidermy. Students will learn how to skin, prep, preserve, mount, and position the animal. The class instructor will provide all specimens, materials, and tools for the class. Each student will leave with their own finished mount!
***Nothing was harmed for this class, these animals were raised to feed large reptiles and would otherwise be discarded if not sold.
Katie Innamorato, artist and Rogue Taxidermist, is a member of the M.A.R.T. or Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. She is professionally and self taught in taxidermy; winning awards and ribbons every year at the GSTA. She explores the commercial relationships between animals and our society and her work questions the idea of bringing nature inside. She also examines the cyclical connections between life and death, and growth and decomposition. As with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens. She uses roadkill, scrap skins from other taxidermists and the garment industry, and donated skins to create her artworks; almost every part of the animal is utilized.
Her work has been featured recently on the new Science Channel show, "Odd Folks Home," on the hit Science and Discovery Channel TV show, "Oddities," and exhibited at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.
Her website and blogs-
www.afterlifeanatomy.com
www.afterlifeanatomy.tumblr.com
www.facebook.com/afterlifeanatomy
www.etsy.com/shop/afterlifeanatomy
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"It Hurts When I Do This" An illustrated History of Quack Medicine through the Artifacts of The Museum of Interesting Things Antique Medical Device Demonstration with Denny Daniel, The Museum of Interesting Things
Date: Thursday, June 13
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
In the handful of centuries documented by mankind, medicine evolved through discovery and practice, with each era experimenting with the technology of its time in a quest to understand the human machine, suppress pain, and vanquish disease and, perhaps, death itself. Some of the techniques employed by our relentless ancestors now seem rather odd, inappropriate or, sometimes, just... brutal.
Tonight, join us for a night of bizarre health machinery hosted by Denny Daniel, proud collector and owner of The Museum of Interesting Things. Daniel will trace the evolution--or, sometimes, lack thereof!-- of medical devices advances via an interactive demonstration of objects from his own collection ranging from magnetic quack medical devices to prosthetics, glass eyes and civil war and early 20th century surgical tools, dental devices including tooth keys and 19th century foot pump dental drills, pill molds, and medicines that worked (or didn’t)!
Come see and feel actual items from the 1800’s and 1900’s. We will cure you of your ailments.
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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop
Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series: With Wilder Duncan (formerly of
Evolution Shop, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid
Anatomy Library
With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
Date: Sunday, June 16
Time: 1 – 6 PM
Admission: $200
*** MUST RSVP to morbidanatomylibrary [at] gmail.com
This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer Series and The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
In
this class, students will learn how to create an osteological
preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays.
A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary
materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome
to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural
elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her
composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking,
fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass
dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY
Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine
collection of curiosities!
This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan
for Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of
the Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient
methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students
will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to
their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a
modern display. More on the series can be found here.
Wilder Duncan
is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas
still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan
University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural
history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen
preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store
creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical
interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects,
tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human.
Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to
old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.
Laetitia Barbier is the head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library. She is working on a master's thesis for the Paris Sorbonne on painter Joe Coleman. She writes for Atlas Obscura and Morbid Anatomy.
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Squirrel Taxidermy and the Ancient Technique of Wrapped Body with Rogue Taxidermist Katie InnamoratoDate: Sunday, June 23
Time: 12 - 6.30
Admission: $275
***Maximum class size: 8 Students; Must RSVP to katie.innamorato [at] gmail.com
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
This class will introduce students to basic taxidermy processes. As with other classes, this is only open to 8 students to allow for a more intimate one on one environment. Each student will be provided with their own squirrel which they will skin, flesh, and prep for mounting. Students will be taught how to wrap bodies for the animals using the carcasses for reference. Wrapping is an old school traditional taxidermy process that many taxidermists do not bother with today. Pre-sculpted head forms will be available for students, but if they are feeling more adventurous they can carve their own! Students will be able to pose their squirrels however they want and are encouraged to bring in any props they may want to dress the animal up in, and items to secure their mounts on. Animal remains will be collected at the end of class and either the students can take them with them, or the instructor will dispose of them.
Rogue taxidermist Katie Innamorato has a BFA in sculpture from SUNY New Paltz, has been featured on the hit TV show "Oddities," and has had her work featured at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles, California. She is self and professionally taught, and has won multiple first place ribbons and awards at the Garden State Taxidermy Association Competition. Her work is focussed on displaying the cyclical connection between life and death and growth and decomposition. Katie is a member of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, and with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens and uses roadkill, scrap, and donated skins to create mounts.
Her website and blogs-
www.afterlifeanatomy.com
www.afterlifeanatomy.tumblr.com
www.facebook.com/afterlifeanatomy
www.etsy.com/shop/afterlifeanatomy
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Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Divya AnantharamanDate: Friday, June 14
Time: 6:30 - 10 PM
Admission: $110
Advance Tickets Required; Click here to purchase
Email divya.does.taxidermy at gmail dot com with questions or to be put on wait list
Class limit: 10
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
Anthropomorphic taxidermy--in which taxidermied animals are posed into human attitudes and poses--was an artform made famous by Victorian taxidermist and museologist Walter Potter. In this class, students will learn to create--from start to finish--anthropomorphic mice inspired by the charming and imaginative work of Mr. Potter and his ilk. With the creative use of props and some artful styling, you will find that your mouse can take nearly whatever form you desire, from a bespectacled, whiskey swilling, top hat tipping mouse to a rodent mermaid queen of the burlesque world.
In this class, Divya Anantharaman--who learned her craft under the tutelage of famed Observatory instructor Sue Jeiven--will teach students everything involved in the production of a fully finished mount, including initial preparation, hygiene and sanitary measures, fleshing, tail stripping, and dry preservation. Once properly preserved, the mice will be posed and outfitted as the student desires. Although a broad selection of props and accessories will be provided by the instructor, students are also strongly encouraged to bring their own accessories and bases; all other materials will supplied. Each student will leave class with a fully finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.
Also, some technical notes:
- We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
- Everyone will be provided with gloves.
- All animals are disease free.
- Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
- All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
- Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.
A series of London-based events, workshops, special tours, screenings and spectacles surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture curated by Observatory's Morbid Anatomy
Date: June 2 - July 25
Time: Variable, but most lectures begin at 7 PM
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here) unless otherwise specified
The series will feature Morbid Anatomy's signature mix of museum professionals, professors, librarians, artists, rogue scholars, and autodidacts--many flown in direct from Morbid Anatomy's base in Brooklyn, New York--to elucidate on a wide array of topics including (but not limited to!) The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead; "human zoos;" "speaking reliquaries;" why music drives women mad; eccentric folk medicine collections; Santa Muerte (or "Saint Death); dissection and masturbation; dissection and magic; Victorian memorial hair jewelry; the "hot nurse" in popular fiction; The Danse Macabre; "a cinematic survey of The Vampires of London;" and anatomical waxworks and death.
There will be also two special backstage tours: one of the legendary Blythe House, home of the vast and incredible collection of Henry Wellcome and the other of the Natural History Museum's zoological collection, featuring the famously gorgeous Blaschka invertebrate glass model collection; a special magic lantern show featuring "the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery" conjured by collector and scholar Professor Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern; a screening of rare short films from the BFI National Archive documenting folk music, dance, customs and sport; and workshops in the creation of Victorian hair work, lifelike wax wounds, and bat skeletons in glass domes.
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| Bubonic Plague by workshop teacher Eleanor Crook |
2nd June 2013
1 to 5pm
Ticket price £120 - all materials included
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Let acclaimed sculptor Eleanor Crook guide you in creating your very own wax wound. Crook has lent her experience to professionals ranging from forensic law enforcement officers to plastic surgeons, so is well placed to help you make a horrendously lifelike scar, boil or blister. More details to be confirmed shortly.
Eleanor Crook trained in sculpture at Central St Martins and the Royal Academy and makes figures and effigies in wax, carved wood and lifelike media. She has also made a special study of anatomy and has sculpted anatomical and pathological waxworks for the Gordon Museum of Pathology at Guy's Hospital, London's Science Museum, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She exhibits internationally in both fine art and science museum contexts. In the interest of making figures more lifelike than the living, using a generous grant from the Wellcome Trust she developed the incorporation of electronic animatronics systems into the sculptures so that her moribund and macabre creations now can twitch and mutter. She is artist in residence at the Gordon Museum of Pathology, a member of the Medical Artists' Association, runs a course in Anatomy drawing at the Royal College of Art and lectures on the M. A. Art and Science course at Central St Martins School of Art in London.
More here. Tickets here.
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| Image: Wax Head by Clemente Susini; Copyright: University of Cagliari, Italy |
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Wax modelling, or ceroplastics, is of ancient origin but was revived in 14th century Italy with the cult of Catholic votive objects, or ex votos. With the rise of Neoclassicism this art became repulsive to artistic sensibilities; it did, however, continue to survive in a scientific environment, where it flourished in the study of normal and pathological anatomy, obstetrics, zoology and botany. Interest in anatomical wax models spread throughout Europe during the eighteenth century leading to the creation of beautiful collections where art and death harmonically cohabit. In today's illustrated lecture, Art Historian Roberta Ballestriero will discuss the art and history of wax modeling sacred and profane; she will also showcase many of its greatest masterworks, such as the anatomical head by Clemente Susini (1754-1814) seen above.
Roberta Ballestriero is an associate lecturer in History of Art for the Open University, in U.K. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, and had her a European PhD for the Complutense University of Madrid. Her research concerns the history of Ceroplastic and wax figures throughout the centuries, (with emphasis on the ‘body of wax’). She started her research on the art of ceroplastics in 1995 and since 2004 she has presented at numerous conferences and has published several articles on her thesis subjects.
More here. Tickets here.
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Music
Driving Women Mad: The History of Medical Fears of its Effects on
Female Bodies and Minds: Illustrated lecture with Dr. James Kennaway4th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
For many doctors since the eighteenth century, women's supposedly weak nerves made them especially vulnerable to over-stimulation, which could lead to a variety of complaints from the vapours to neurasthenia. One surprisingly common focus of these concerns was music. Over the past few centuries, countless physicians and writers have asserted that music could cause very serious medical problems for the 'weaker sex'. Not only could it bring on symptoms of nervousness and hysteria, it could also cause infertility, nymphomania and even something called 'melosexualism'. This talk will give an outline of this strange debate, using the raciest stories to be found in gynaecological textbooks.
Dr James Kennaway is a lecturer in the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford. He has previously held posts at Stanford University, the University of Vienna and the University of Durham. His book "Bad Vibrations: The History of the Idea of Music as a Cause of Disease" was published last summer.
More here. Tickets here.
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5th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
In his watercolour of a 'Persevering Surgeon' (see left), the British artist Thomas Rowlandson made no bones about the darkly erotic nature of anatomical dissection. Poised over the body of a naked woman, erect knife in hand, Rowlandson's anatomist conjured images of the other solitary vice that consumed later 18th century moralists and medical men. But like Rowlandson - who combined popular satirical illustration with a more discreet trade in pornographic imagery - anatomists maintained a delicate balance between personal pursuits and public propriety. In this lavishly illustrated lecture, Simon Chaplin explores the sexual undertones of the anatomy schools of Georgian London, in which students dissected grave-robbed bodies in the back-rooms of their teachers' houses, while their masters explored new strategies for presenting their work to polite audiences through museums and lectures.
Dr Simon Chaplin is Head of the Wellcome Library in London. Before joining the Wellcome he was Director of the Hunterian Museum in London, one of the world's oldest anatomy collections. His research interests include the history of anatomy, surgery and museums, and his doctoral thesis explored the relationship between dissection and display through the work of the Hunterian Museum's founder, the surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793).
More here. Tickets here.
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Heartthrobs
of the Human Zoo: Ethnographic Exhibitions and Captive Celebrities of
Turn of the Century America: An Illustrated Lecture with Betsy Bradley6th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
The ethnographic exhibitions that became popular in late Victorian Europe gave white visitors the chance to gaze upon entire villages of naturmenschen, temporarily imported from distant (usually colonial) lands and going about their daily lives in recreated habitats, much like their animal counterparts at the zoo. The Busby Berkeley scale of these colonial show-and-tells was designed to make a statement: instead of one displayed person, here were tribes of them, "villages negres," to quote the French. But the pointed anonymity of these living diorama could not prevent the media and the public from making stars out of their favorite "savages," particularly in the United States. From ransomed Congolese pygmies to winsome Eskimo babies, the American world's fairs and patriotic expositions present history with a number of troubling ethnographic celebrities, and their stories offer a rare glimpse inside the psychology and culture of imperial America at the turn of a new century.
Betsy Bradley is a Brooklyn-based writer whose interests include the hidden histories of New York City and the intersection of literature, science, and American popular culture. She is the author of Knickerbocker: The Myth Behind New York, and a contributor to the Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York, among other anthologies. She has written for Edible Manhattan, Edible Brooklyn, Bookforum, and The New York Times. Bradley is the author of a forthcoming guidebook about New York to be published by Reaktion Books (UK) and is at work on a history of eugenics and its impact on American society, from sideshows to compulsory sterilization.
More here. Tickets here.
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The
Astounding Collection of Henry Wellcome: Blythe House Backstage Tour
with Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine, The Science MuseumThis event is limited to only 15 participants and will begin at 15:00 at Blythe House, 23 Blythe Road, West Kensington
Ticket price £20
7th June 2013
Henry Wellcome (1853 – 1936)----early pharmaceutical magnate and man behind the Wellcome Trust, Collection, and Library--was the William Randolph Hearst of the medical collecting world. Upon his death, he had collected over one million objects--many still in unopened crates in far-flung warehouses--related in the broadest sense to the history of medicine. His curators reduced that number by around to around 100,000 keeping only the very best. That collection, possibly the finest medical collection in the world, now resides in Blythe House, kept in trust by The Science Museum on permanent loan from the Wellcome Trust.
Today, a lucky fifteen people will get a rare chance to see this collection, featuring many artifacts of which have never before been on public view, in this backstage tour led Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine at The Science Museum.
More here. Tickets here.
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10th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
.. Naples, the most macabre of cities. Naples, the mouth of Hades. The dead are played with there like big dolls...
--The Necrophiliac, Gabrielle Wittkop
Naples is a unique city in which the sacred and the profane, Catholicism and paganism, beauty and decay blend and contrast in intriguing ways. No practice illustrates this tangle of ideas better than what is known as "The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" in which devout Catholics--generally poor women--adopt anonymous skulls found in charnel houses and clean, care for, and sometimes house them, offering up prayers and offerings to shorten that soul's time in purgatory before reaching paradise, where, it is hoped, it will assist its earthbound caretaker with special favors. The macabre artifacts of this cult can be seen in the Cimitero delle Fontanelle (see above) and the crypt of the church of Saint Mary of Purgatory.
In tonight's illustrated lecture, Italian artist and filmmaker Chiara Ambrosio will elucidate this curious and fascinating "Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" and situate it within a the rich death culture and storied history of Naples.
Chiara Ambrosio is a visual artist working with video and animation. Her work has included collaborations with performance artists, composers, musicians and writers, and has been shown in a number of venues including national and international film festivals, galleries and site specific events. She also runs The Light and Shadow Salon is a place for artists, writers and audience to meet and share ideas about the past, present and future of the moving image in all its forms.
More here. Tickets here.
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I am Amazed and Know Not What to Say! - A Vile Vaudeville of Gothic Attractions: Illustrated lecture by Mervyn Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern11th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
An illustrated talk in which writer and showman ‘Professor’ Mervyn Heard waxes scattergun- sentimental over some of the more bizarre, live theatrical experiences of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century – from the various ghastly manifestations of the phantasmagoria to performing hangmen, self-crucifiers and starving brides.
Mervyn Heard is the author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern (2006), was responsible for designing the phantasmagoria intallation for the Tate Britain’s Gothic Nightmare (2006), and has staged bespoke magic lantern performances worldwide in playhouses, cinemas, department stores, museums, tents and dissecting theatres.
More here. Tickets here.
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12th June 2013
First performance begins at 7pm
Second performance begins at 9pm
Ticket price £10
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Professor Heard is well known to patrons of the Last Tuesday Lecture programme for his sell-out magic lantern entertainments. In this latest assault on the eye he summons up some of the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery, lantern stories and optical effects by special request of Morbid Anatomy. These he will present on a magnificent mahogany and brass magic lantern projector perfectly suited for the purpose.
Mervyn Heard is the author of Phantasmagoria-The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern (2006), was responsible for designing the phantasmagoria installation for the Tate Britain’s Gothic Nightmare (2006), and has staged bespoke magic lantern performances worldwide in playhouses, cinemas, department stores, museums, tents and dissecting theatres.
More here. Tickets here.
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"Speaking Reliquaries" and Christian Death Rituals: Part One of "Hairy Secrets" Series With Karen Bachmann13th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
In this 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will focus on what are termed "speaking" reliquaries: the often elaborate containers which house the preserved body parts--or relics--of saints and martyrs with shapes which reflect that of the body-part contained within. Bachmann will examine these fascinating objects from an art historical perspective, and discuss their relationship to concepts of human body parts as icons of the immortal. They will be put into the larger context of Christian death rituals, in particular the veneration of saints body parts as sacred and magical relics. Also discussed will be the extremely odd proclivities of a variety of renaissance saints, such as Catherine of Sienna who drank pus from open sores. This will serve as the genesis in our further discussions of human hair, teeth, and nails as icons of the immortal.
The Hairy Secrets series will explore in lectures and workshops the history of the preservation of human remains for reasons sacred and profane, culminating in the flowering of Victorian hair art mourning jewelry, or jewelry which incorporates the hair of the beloved dead.
- Lecture One: “Speaking Reliquaries” and Christian Death Rituals (13th June)
- Lecture Two: The History of the Memento Mori and Death’s Head Iconography (14th June)
- Lecture Three: The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry and Morbid Anatomy Going Away Party (17th June)
- Workshop: Victorian Hair Jewelry Workshop with Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann (14th, 15th, and 16th June from 1 - 5pm)
More here. Tickets here.
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Hair Art Workshop Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewellery With Karen Bachmann14th, 15th, and 16th June 2013 from 1 - 5pm
Ticket price £50
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Hair jewellery was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre. The technique of "palette working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner. Students are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create future projects.
The Hairy Secrets series will explore in lectures and workshops the history of the preservation of human remains for reasons sacred and profane, culminating in the flowering of Victorian hair art mourning jewelry, or jewelry which incorporates the hair of the beloved dead.
- Lecture One: “Speaking Reliquaries” and Christian Death Rituals (13th June)
- Lecture Two: The History of the Memento Mori and Death’s Head Iconography (14th June)
- Lecture Three: The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry and Morbid Anatomy Going Away Party (17th June)
- Workshop: Victorian Hair Jewelry Workshop with Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann (14th, 15th, and 16th June from 1 - 5pm)
More here. Tickets here (14th June), here (15th June), and here (16th June).
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14th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
In tonight's lecture--the second in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will explore the development of the memento mori,objects whose very raison d'être is to remind the beholder that they, too, will die. Bachman will trace the symbolism and iconography of the memento mori and death's head imagery in both Medieval and Renaissance art, focusing on jewelry. She will also discuss the development of the "portable relic" -- a wearable form of body part reliquary, will be the focus of this lecture. The importance of hair in contemporaneous art of the period will be addressed, as well as the development of bereavement jewelry with hair.
The Hairy Secrets series will explore in lectures and workshops the history of the preservation of human remains for reasons sacred and profane, culminating in the flowering of Victorian hair art mourning jewelry, or jewelry which incorporates the hair of the beloved dead.
- Lecture One: “Speaking Reliquaries” and Christian Death Rituals (13th June)
- Lecture Two: The History of the Memento Mori and Death’s Head Iconography (14th June)
- Lecture Three: The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry and Morbid Anatomy Going Away Party (17th June)
- Workshop: Victorian Hair Jewelry Workshop with Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann (14th, 15th, and 16th June from 1 - 5pm)
More here. Tickets here.
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17th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
The Victorians had a love affair with death which they expressed in a variety of ways, both intensely sentimental and macabre. Tonight’s lecture–the last in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry–will take as its focus the apex of the phenomenon of hair jewelry fashion in the Victorian Era as an expression of this passion. Nineteenth century mourning rituals will be discussed, with a particular focus on Victorian hairwork jewelry, both palette worked and table worked. Also discussed will be the historical roots of the Victorian fascination with death, such as high mortality rates for both adults and children, the rise of the park cemetery, and the death of Queen Victoria’s beloved Prince Albert and her subsequent fashion-influencing 40-year mourning period. Historical samples of hair art and jewelry from the lecturer’s personal collection will also be shown.
The Hairy Secrets series will explore in lectures and workshops the history of the preservation of human remains for reasons sacred and profane, culminating in the flowering of Victorian hair art mourning jewelry, or jewelry which incorporates the hair of the beloved dead.
- Lecture One: “Speaking Reliquaries” and Christian Death Rituals (13th June)
- Lecture Two: The History of the Memento Mori and Death’s Head Iconography (14th June)
- Lecture Three: The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry and Morbid Anatomy Going Away Party (17th June)
- Workshop: Victorian Hair Jewelry Workshop with Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann (14th, 15th, and 16th June from 1 - 5pm)
More here. Tickets here.
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18th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
This lecture examines images of human corpses in Early Modern European art in relation to two specific themes: the practice of ‘witchcraft’ or ‘magic’; and the emergent medical profession, particularly anatomical dissection. As the images demonstrate, the two practices were closely linked during this period, and the corpses were a source - albeit fraught with anxieties - of power and knowledge for the figures of the witch and the anatomist.
Constanza Isaza Martinez is an artist, photographer, and independent researcher. She gained her BA in Photographic Arts from the University of Westminster, and her MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute. Both her art and her research have frequently explored themes of mortality, mutability, death, and decay. For more information, please visit www.constanzaisaza.com.
More here. Tickets here.
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‘She
Healed Their Bodies With Her White Hot Passions’: The Role of the Nurse
in Romantic Fiction with Natasha McEnroe: Illustrated lecture Natasha
McEnroe, Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum19th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
“She stood by, handing him the required instruments while he stitched up an ice-pick stabbing that had by some miracle barely missed a woman’s heart. She heard the woman’s thick voice as she went under the anaesthetic: ‘My man didn’t really mean to hurt me, Doc. He was just mad account of I didn’t have him a meat supper when he got home from work.’” [Society Nurse, 1962].Under such dramatic circumstances, it is no wonder that passion flares between the beautiful young nurse and her handsome doctor colleague. The figure of the nurse in romance fiction is a powerful one, her starched white apron covering a breast heaving with suppressed emotion. Victorian portrayals of the nurse show either a drunken and dishonest old woman or an angelic and devoted being, which changes to a 20th-century caricature just as pervasive – that of the ‘sexy nurse’. In this talk, Natasha McEnroe will explore the links between the enforced intimacy of the sickroom and the handling of bodies for more recreational reasons.
Natasha McEnroe is the Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum. Her previous post was Museum Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy and Curator of the Galton Collection at University College London. From 1997 – 2007, she was Curator of Dr Johnson’s House in London’s Fleet Street, and has also worked for the National Trust and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Natasha has lectured widely at venues including the Royal Society, the British Museum and the Hunterian Museum.
More here. Tickets here.
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20th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Approximately 1500 people die every day across the United Kingdom, roughly one person a minute. And unless you are a person who works in a profession connected to the dying, chances are good you rarely (if ever) see any of these 1500 dead bodies. More importantly-- do you and your next of kin know what you want done with your dead body when you die? In the future, of course, since it's easier to think that way. Dr. John Troyer, from the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will discuss three kinds of postmortem futures: Future Death, Future Dead Bodies, and Future Cemeteries. Central to these Futures is the human corpse and its use in new forms of body disposal technology, digital technology platforms, and definitions of death.
Dr. John Troyer is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. His interdisciplinary research focuses on contemporary memorialisation practices, concepts of spatial historiography, and the dead body?s relationship with technology. Dr. Troyer is also a theatre director and installation artist with extensive experience in site-specific performance across the United States and Europe. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website and a frequent commentator for the BBC. His forthcoming book, Technologies of the Human Corpse (published by the University of North Carolina Press), will appear in 2013.
More here. Tickets here.
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24th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Copies of the book Forces of Form: The Vrolik Museum will be available for sale and signing.
Two skeletons of dwarfs, rare Siamese twins, cyclops and sirens, dozens of pathologically deformed bones, the giant skull of a grown man with hydrocephalus, the skeleton of the lion once owned by king Louis Napoleon, as well as the organs of a babirusa, Tasmanian devil and tree kangaroo – rare animals that died in the Amsterdam zoo ‘Artis’ shortly before their dissection. Counting more than five thousand preparations and specimens, the Museum Vrolikianum, the private collection of father Gerard (1775-1859) and his son Willem Vrolik (1801-1863), was an amazing object of interest one hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1840s and 50s this museum, established in Gerard’s stately mansion on the river Amstel, grew into a famous collection that attracted admiring scientists from both the Netherlands and abroad. After the Vrolik era, the museum was expanded with new collections by succeeding anatomists and the museum now houses more than 10,000 anatomical specimens.
Since 1984, the museum has been located in the academic Hospital of the University of Amsterdam. In 2009 the museum collections were portrayed by the photographer Hans van den Bogaard for the book Forces of Form. This book was the starting point for the creation of a new 'aesthetic' of the museum and its collection, eventually resulting in the grand reopening of the renovated and redesigned permanent exhibition in September 2012. For the first time since the death of father and son Vrolik, all of their scientific interests - the animal anatomy, the congenital malformations and the pathologically deformed human skeletons can all be viewed together, thus giving an impression of what that mid-19th century anatomy was all about. In this talk, Museum Vrolik curator will take you on a guided tour of the new museum, and give an overview of all the other aspects of the 'new' Museum Vrolik.
Dr. Laurens de Rooy (b. 1974) works as a curator of the Museum Vrolik in the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. He studied Medical Biology, specializing in the history of science and museology. during his internship he researched the collection of father and son Vrolik. In 2009 he obtained his PhD in medical history.
More here. Tickets here.
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The Walking Dead in 1803: An Illustrated Lecture with Phil Loring, Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London
25th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
A visiting Italian startled Londoners at the turn of the 19th century by making decapitated animals and executed men open their eyes and move around, as if on the verge of being restored to life. This was not magic but the power of electricity from the newly invented Galvanic trough, or battery. It was also the dawn of the modern neurosciences, as the thrust behind these macabre experiments was to understand the energy that moved through the nerves and linked our wills to our bodies. This talk will discuss a variety of historical instruments from the Science Museum's collections that figured in these re-animation experiments, including the apparatus used by Galvani himself in his laboratory in Bologna. This will be a partial preview of an upcoming Science Museum exhibition on nerve activity, to open in December 2013.
Phil Loring is BPS Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London. He has a Master's degree in Medical Anthropology from Harvard University and is currently completing his Ph.D. in the History of Science, also from Harvard, with a dissertation on psycho-linguists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after the Second World War. Phil has been at the Science Museum since 2009, and during that time he has been particularly committed to sharing artefacts related to psychology and psychiatry with adult audiences. He's currently preparing an exhibition on the history of nerves, to open in December 2013.
More here. Tickets here.
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26th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews’ case is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror and war. But Matthews’ case was even stranger than his doctors realised: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be involved were entirely real. Caught up in high-level diplomatic intrigues in the chaos of the French revolution, he found himself betrayed by both sides, and in possession of a secret that no-one would believe…
Mike Jay is an author, historian and curator who has written widely on the history of science and medicine, and particularly on drugs and madness. As well as The Influencing Machine, he is the author of Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century and High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture, which accompanied the exhibition he curated at Wellcome Collection.
More here. Tickets here.
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27th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
`You perceive that this is some sort of holy of holiest, the nearest Victorians got to a Cathedral, with its saints enniched within’. The chief saint in Madame Tussaud’s exhibition was Bonaparte, the chief villains were Robespierre and his revolutionary colleagues. When she arrived in Britain in 1802 for a short tour that lasted until she died in 1850, her exhibition was an exploration of the evils of the French Revolution. She had modelled the guillotined revolutionaries, as well as Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, from their severed heads- and brought a model of a guillotine and the Bastille fortress to expose the short comings of the French. The British, busily at war with their nearest neighbour, loved this critical exposure. Later the focus of her collection became her `Shrine to Napoleon’ consisted of two rooms dedicated to the Emperor. Napoleon had always had a leading role in her touring company, but in 1834, when she was a well-established figure in the world of entertainment and about to open a permanent museum in Baker Street, Madame. Tussaud began to amass large quantities of Napoleonic memorabilia. She built up a collection which Napoleon III acknowledged, when he tried abortively to buy it from the Tussauds, to be the best in the world. Madame Tussaud’s presentation of French politics and history did much to inform and influence the popular perception of France among the British. This paper will explore that view and how it changed during the nineteenth century.
Pamela Pilbeam is Emeritus Professor of French History, Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks.
More here. Tickets here.
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29th June and 30th June 2013, 1 to 5pm
Ticket price £150
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
In this class, students will learn how to create an osteological preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays. A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking, fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine collection of curiosities! This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan for Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of the Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display. More on the series can be found here.
Wilder Duncan is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects, tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human. Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.
Laetitia Barbier is the head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library. She is working on a master’s thesis for the Paris Sorbonne on painter Joe Coleman. She writes for Atlas Obscura and Morbid Anatomy.
More here (29th) and here (30th). Tickets here (29th) and here (30th).
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9th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
During the middle ages, the danse macabre developed into an independent art form, most often in the shape of murals which adorned the walls of cemeteries. These depictions of death followed a strict rulebook and generally were a representation of the class system of the time, which was based on nobility or – to be more precise – the estate-based society. The advent of the bourgeois during the 1700s and the upcoming industrialisation put a question mark not only behind the societal system, but quite naturally also behind many of the established art forms. The danse macabre was widely regarded to be an outdated concept and a discussion evolved whether the skeleton still was the appropriate epitome for death. One of the proponents of this discussion was the Swiss artist Johann Rudolf Schellenberg, who created the first modern danse macabre in 1785, far away from the old class system, a work of art which still has an uncanny actuality and addresses many of the modern fears still extant in society at present. His trailblazing work updated the genre overnight and can be seen as the master source of all similar works of art to follow. A complete set of the plates is held by the Roche Historical Collection and Archive in Basel, which also holds one of the world’s oldest anatomical collections. The lecture not only discusses Schellenberg’s danse macabre in detail, but also gives an insight into the current fascination with vanitas and its depictions, especially focusing on the artistic exploitation of the theme and takes into consideration the history of anatomical dissection and preparation.
Alexander L. Bieri (*1976) is the curator of the Roche Historical Collection and Archive, a department within Roche Group Holdings. He assumes this position since 1999. Based in Basel, Switzerland but active as a consultant throughout the world, he has published many books and articles both on Roche-related and other themes. He also is responsible for a variety of Roche in-house museums and curated special exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. In his capacity as an expert for 20th century architecture and design, he is a member of ICOMOS. In 2012, he was appointed lecturer for exhibition design at the Basel University.
More here. Tickets here.
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| Photo courtesy of Tonya Hurley |
10th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
The worship of Santa Muerte, a psuedo Catholic saint which takes the form of a personified and clothed lady death, is on the rise and increasingly controversial in Mexico and the United States. Literally translating to “Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” the worship of Santa Muerte–like Day of the Dead–is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics. Worshippers of "The Bony Lady" include the very poor, prostitutes, drug dealers, transvestites, prison inmates and others for whom traditional religion has not served, and for whom the possibility of unpredictable and violent death is a very real part of everyday life. In the view of her worshippers, Santa Muerte is simply a branch of Catholicism which takes at its central figure the most powerful of all saints--Saint Death herself, the saint all must, after all, one day answer to.The Catholic Church sees it, however, as, at best, inadvertent devil worship, with the worship of death--and the manifestation of a saint from a concept rather than an individual--as heretical to its core tenants. Tonight, R. Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint and Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, will detail his research into the history and ongoing development of this fascinating "new religion."
Copies of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Sain will be available for sale and signing.
Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut earned his Ph.D degree in Latin American History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and joined the History Department faculty at the University of Houston in 1997 where he quickly became an internationally recognized expert on Latin American religious history. His most recent book is Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012). It is the first in-depth study of the Mexican folk saint in English.
More here. Tickets here.
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From
Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett and London's Folk
Medicine: An Illustrated lecture with Ross MacFarlane, Research
Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library15th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
During his life Edward Lovett (1852-1933) amassed one of the largest collections of objects pertaining to 'folk medicine' in the British Isles. Lovett particularly focused his attention on objects derived from contemporary, working class Londoners, believing that the amulets, charms and mascots he collected - and which were still being used in 20th century London - were 'survivals' of antiquated, rural practices. Lovett, however, was a marginal figure in folklore circles, never attaining the same degree of influence as many of his peers. Whilst he hoped in his lifetime to establish a 'National Museum of Folklore', Lovett's sizeable collection is now widely dispersed across many museums in the UK, including Wellcome Collection, the Science Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Cuming Museum. This paper will offer an overview of the range of healing objects Lovett collected, the collecting practices he performed and recent efforts to rehabilitate his reputation.
Ross MacFarlane is Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library, where he is heavily involved in promoting the Library's collections, particularly to academic audiences. He has researched and given public talks on such topics as the history of early recorded sound and the collecting activities of Henry Wellcome and his members of staff. Ross is a frequent contributor to the Wellcome Library's blog and has had led guided walks around London on the occult past of Bloomsbury and the intersection of medicine, science and trade in Greenwich and Deptford.
More here. Tickets here.
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25th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here)
This talk argues that the creative imagination played a crucial role in the development of science during the scientific revolution. Modern, natural knowledge emerged from the interaction of painters, printmakers, artisans, cartographers, and natural historians. All these practitioners carefully observed, pictured and cataloged all the exotic naturalia that flooded Europe during the Columbian exchange. Yet their collaboration did not end there. They also engaged in a joint, conjectural guesswork as to what other, as yet unknown plants and animals might hide in the forests of New England, the archipelago of the Caribbean, the unfathomable depths of the Northern Sea, or even in the cavernous mountains of the Moon. From its beginnings, science was (and still is) an imaginative and speculative enterprise, just like the arts. This talk traces the exchange of visual information between the major artists of the Renaissance and the leading natural historians of the scientific revolution. It shows how painters’ and printmakers’ fictitious images of unicorns, camels and monkfish came to populate the botanical and zoological encyclopedias of early modern Europe. The leading naturalists of the age, including Conrad Gesner, Carolus Clusius and John Jonstonus, constantly consulted the oeuvre of Dürer, Rubens and Hendrick Goltzius, among others, as an inspiration to hypothesize how unknown, and unseen, plants and animals might look like.
Daniel Margocsy is assistant professor of history at Hunter College – CUNY. In 2012/3, he is the Birkelund Fellow of the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He has co-edited States of Secrecy, a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science on scientific secrecy, and published articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Annals of Science, and the Netherlands Yearbook of Art History.
More here. Tickets here.
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You can find out more about all events here.
Image: From the Victorian Mourning Facebook Group: A Victorian woman in full first year mourning. Courtesy of Jack Mord at The Thanatos Archive.
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