The Sackler Research Forum is delighted to announce the Spring 2016 Friends Lecture series. Entitled听Utopia: Constructed, the series will be part of a rich programme of public events inspired by听the 500th听anniversary of Thomas More鈥檚听Utopia听that will be taking place at Somerset House during 2016. Scholars from across The 91自拍 have contributed to the planning of the series, and we are keen to explore the transformative power of architecture听in the past, present, and future.听It is envisioned as an opportunity to explore the interplay between the visual arts, social contexts, and intellectual communities, and to examine the intersections of media, aesthetics and politics with architecture and the urban.听Utopia: Constructed听will investigate the multivalent modes of architectural research and artistic practice, and how the legacy of听Utopia听has been negotiated through space and ideas.
Utopian places and spaces: the urban ideal in 20th century India
19th January 2016听
Professor Deborah Swallow, M盲rit Rausing Director听– 91自拍
This first lecture in the series Utopia Constructed explores the relationship between ideal concepts and the actual practice of architecture and city planning in the context of India. It touches on concepts of the ideal city in classical textual sources and听 the creation of historic cities such as the 18th听century city of Jaipur, but looks in more detail at three post-independence examples: Chandigarh, the capital of the Indian state of Punjab, designed by Le Corbusier; 听Bhubaneswar, the somewhat less well known capital of Odisha, designed by Otto K枚nigsberger;听 and the township of Auroville near Pondicherry, a Utopian community which was inspired by the teaching of Indian听, philosopher,听,听, and poet, Sri Aurobindo Ghose and his close spiritual collaborator,听, who is better known as听The Mother. It explores the ways in which ideal and utopian concepts of urban planning and societal creation have played out in the lived reality, drawing on field research 听undertaken in the 1970s and ongoing observations during many subsequent visits to India.
Deborah Swallow became the M盲rit Rausing Director of 91自拍 in 2004, after a curatorial career at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and The Victoria and Albert Museum.
Heterotopologies: Frontier as Symbolic Form
9th February 2016
Professor Reinhold Martin听– Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
Speaking with a group of architects in 1967, Michel Foucault distinguished heterotopias, actually existing 鈥榦ther鈥 or 鈥榙ifferent鈥 spaces, from 鈥榝undamentally and essentially unreal鈥 utopias. This talk will revisit that figure鈥攈eterotopia鈥攁s a boundary problem, of which the modern research university is an important instance. Mapping the limits of the university as both a utopian ideal and a historical reality reveals a 鈥榟eterotopology鈥 that extends the critique of power initiated by Foucault鈥攊ncluding that critique鈥檚 utopian dimensions, which are more relevant than ever today. To do so, the talk will sketch an architectural genealogy of the American university and through it, of 鈥楢merica鈥 itself, in the process of becoming hegemonic. We will pay special attention to the 鈥榝rontier鈥 and its horizons, which emerged as a 鈥榮ymbolic form鈥 reorganizing the topologies of knowledge at the very moment that art history discovered a related function for perspective and its vanishing points.
Power and Performance: the Bruges Mantelpiece to Charles V
16th February 2016
Professor Ethan Matt Kavaler听– Professor, Department of Art, and Director, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto
How were political art works able to mediate between rival interests, to enhance the power and presence of rulers while buttressing the competing rights and privileges of their subjects? And in what ways did sculpture address these problems that painting could not?听 The carved mantelpiece dedicated to Charles V in Bruges is a revealing example that derives its agency partly from rituals designed to reconcile these conflicting demands. The mantelpiece, with its life-size statues encroaching on communal space, could induce a series of performances by beholders, structured by memories of previous social and political practices.听 Such monuments might best be explored through notions of performativity, of collective acts both executed and retraced that regulated power relationships.听 Their spatial, plastic, and material properties are all essential to its efficacy in shaping beliefs and framing public interaction.
Reflections on Utopia and Post-Studio Art Practice
15th March 2016听
Alex Hartley听– Artist
鈥淭he lecture will use examples of my own work to discuss utopian ideas within current post-studio art practice, including听Nowhereisland, my ten-year artwork that culminated in a new travelling nation built from an Arctic island that I discovered in 2004.听Nowhereisland听gathered more than 23,000 citizens during its journey from the High Arctic to the south west coast of the UK. Other works covered will include听Vigil听for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial and听Dropper,听which was installed at various venues including Occupy, London in 2012. Both installations involved full time occupation of the artworks by the artist and others. Other artists鈥 projects, that inspire or overlap with my practice, will be considered (including Francis Alys, Andrea Zittel, and Olafur Eliasson) alongside utopian architectural concepts and their relationship to sculptural production.鈥