Queen’s University Presents: _____________________________________________________________________ Context and Meaning XV: Sensing Matters(s) _____________________________________________________________________ Papers in Visual and Material Culture and Art Conservation January 29th – January 30th, 2016 Agnes Etherington Art Centre Kingston, Ontario ___________________________________________________ About the Conference ___________________________________________________ The GVCA’s annual graduate student conference, Context and Meaning, is in its fifteenth year. The primary focus of the conference has been the consideration of how art and context come together to produce meaning. For the past three years, the decision was made to introduce a more defined theme, beginning with “Making and Breaking Identity,” “Contact,” and last year’s “Ideolog(ies).” These themes allowed for a focused yet inclusive forum that facilitated discussion while encompassing a range of topics. We hope to achieve the same success this year with “Sensing Matter(s).” This conference is intended to have a wide reach. It is open to both historical and contemporary topics, both discussions of “fine art” objects and those encountered every day. This year, we encouraged submissions from a range of disciplines that deal with the study of visual and material culture. We believe that we have achieved our goal and look forward to engaging discussions that reveal commonalities between seemingly disparate subjects. ___________________________________________________ About the GVCA ___________________________________________________ The Graduate Visual Culture Association (GVCA) was formed in 2003 to enhance the quality of graduate student life in the Department of Art at Queen’s University. The GVCA has flourished through the active participation of new and returning graduate students and through social events and regular academic activities in the Department of Art. One of the primary functions of the GVCA is to organize our annual graduate student conference. This year, the conference is organized by Lauren Bird, Nicole Ensing, Molly-Claire Gillett, and Isabel Luce. If you would like more information or to get involved, please contact us at: [email protected]. ___________________________________________________ Schedule ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ Friday, January 30, 2015 ___________________________________________________ 8:30am – 8:45am Registration/Coffee and Refreshments 8:45am – 9:00am Opening Remarks, Dr. Una D’Elia SESSION ONE 9:00am – 10:30am Mimesis, Surrogacy, and Evocative Objects Chair: Dr. Una D’Elia, Department of Art History and Art Conservation Challenging Expectations: The Display of Medieval Manuscripts in Museums Ruth Mullet, Cornell University Ron Mueck’s Hyperrealist Sculpture and the Abject Siobhan Locke, Queen’s University Savoury Sanpuru: The Lure of Japan’s Mitate Food Culture Michelle Smith, Queen’s University 10:30am – 10:45am Break with Refreshments SESSION TWO 10:45am – 12:15pm Mysterious and Miraculous: Sensing Religiosity Chair: Dr. Matthew Reeve, Department of Art History and Art Conservation Visual Verses: From the Form of Spirit to the Spirit of Form Rawa’a Bakhsh, Queen’s University (Com)Passion: Experiencing Sympathy and Empathy at the Italian Sacri Monti Kennis Forte, Queen’s University Morality in Stone: Considering Oral Tradition in the Market and Grape Stealing Capitals at Wells Cathedral Ashley Paolozzi, Queen’s University 12:15pm – 1:30pm Lunch (not provided) SESSION THREE 1:30pm – 3:00pm Techniques and Technologies of the New Museum Chair: Jan Allen, Director, Agnes Etherington Art Centre Harley Parker’s Multi-Sensorial Museum Adam Lauder, University of Toronto Disseminating Possession: 3D Printing, the Individual and the De- centralized Museum Keely-Jayne McCavitt, Western University #NeverForget: Social Media, Visuality, and Affectual Engagement at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Meghan Lundrigan, Carleton University 3:00pm – 3:15pm Break with Refreshments SESSION FOUR 3:15pm – 4:45pm Immersion and Subversion Chair: Dr. Jennifer Kennedy, Department of Art History and Art Conservation The Composer as a Curator: Following John Cage’s Composition for Museum Liora Belford, University of Toronto Always Shadows: Digital and Multimedia Approaches to the Archive Carling Spinney, Western University Affecting Activist Art: Inside Killjoy Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House Genevieve Flavelle, Western University 4:45pm – 5:00pm Break 5:00pm – 6:00pm Keynote Address Off the Wall: Haptic Presence, Queer Resistance, and Interior Design Dr. John Potvin, Concordia University 6:00pm – 8:00pm Evening Reception, Agnes Etherington House 8:00pm – 10:30pm Informal Reception: Trivia at the Grad Club ___________________________________________________ Saturday, January 31, 2015 ___________________________________________________ 8:30am – 8:45am Coffee and Refreshments 8:45am – 9:00am Opening Remarks, Dr. Joan Schwartz SESSION FIVE 9:00am – 10:30am Absence and Presence Chair: Dr. Joan Schwartz, Department of Art History and Art Conservation “In Time but not of Time:” Jessica Eaton Evolves the Situation of Photography Ruth Skinner, Western University The Missing Merzbauten, the Wandering Merzbauten Gabriel Cheung, Queen’s University Double Negative/Proof Positive: The Allure of Spirit Photography Felicity Hamer, Concordia University 10:30am – 10:45am Break with Refreshments SESSION SIX 10:45am – 12:15pm Disruption and Disjuncture: Bodies in the Institution Chair: Sunny Kerr, Curator of Contemporary Art, Agnes Etherington Art Centre Applying Techniques of Dance Anthropology to Museum Education Carolyne Clare, Simon Fraser University “I Have Only Been a Lover in English:” Documenting the Refugee Body in the Performance Art of Francisco-Fernandos Granados Julia McMillan, Dalhousie University Beyond Plinths and Pedestals: Brendan Fernandes and Lost Bodies Carina Magazzeni, MA, Queen’s University 12:15pm – 1:30pm Lunch, Agnes Etherington Art Centre Atrium. SESSION SEVEN 1:30pm – 3:00pm Conserving and Preserving Chair: Rosaleen Hill, Department of Art History and Art Conservation Categorizing Visual Material: Tactile Visual Culture and the History of Herbaria Mieke Rodenburg, Queen’s University The Material History of Iron Gall Ink Through the Lens of the Agnes Etherington Art Collection Emily Cloutier, Queen’s University Those in the Netherworld Sing: Considering the Intangible in Conserving Dissociated Ancient Object Megan Doxsey-Whitfield, Daniel Doyle, Anne-Marie Guerin, Lisa Imamura, Gyllian Porteous, Carolyn Savage, Sophia Zweifel, Queen’s University 3:00pm – 3:15pm Closing Remarks ___________________________________________________ Presentation Abstracts and Speaker Biographies Organized in scheduled sequence ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ Ruth Mullet ___________________________________________________ Ruth Mullet is a PhD candidate in Medieval Studies at Cornell University. Her dissertation project investigates how the late thirteenth-century collection of saints' lives known as the South English Legendary, understood within its paleographic and codicological situation, changed according to its social context over time. Her research interests extend to include the cultural history of the senses, museum studies, Old and Middle English hagiography, digital cataloguing techniques, and manuscript fragmentology. Challenging Expectations: The Display of Medieval Manuscripts in Museums Artistic representations of Books of Hours and Psalters creep into museum galleries sometimes more frequently than the codices themselves. They lurk in the painted altarpieces and illustrations of the later Middle Ages, silent in the laps of penitents or hanging from the belt buckles of monastics. While the frequency with which these books appear in art is certainly indicative of the centrality of devotional books in the spiritual lives of the medieval religious, the manuscripts themselves are rarely given a dedicated space in museums. Those manuscripts that do appear are usually elaborately decorated Book of Hours or Psalters. For the museum visitor, medieval manuscripts are usually experienced as visual materials, their focus is rarely drawn to the text, the nature of the everyday object, or sensory experience it invoked. In this paper I present an intervention that I curated at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, NY in May 2014. The intervention comprised three manuscript fragments, all with vernacular components, dating from the thirteenth- to the fifteenth-century. I brought three medieval manuscript fragments together in order to challenge perspectives on medieval devotion: two undecorated manuscript fragments with vernacular prayers and a woodcut from a printed book were placed alongside, and equal to, the ornate objects already on display. Furthermore, the intervention aimed to embrace the sensory capacity of the book in ways that are related to their original devotional purpose. The visitor was encouraged to listen to, and to read along with, the contents of the manuscript leaves through audio recordings and transcriptions. In this paper, I will explore the curatorial approaches I employed in order highlight the performative, sensory nature of the objects on display. ____________________________________________________ Siobhan Locke ___________________________________________________