2017 Burdick-Vary Symposium
In conjunction with: “Martha Glowacki’s Natural History, Observations and Reflections”
(Chazen Museum of Art)
“Natural History : Natural Philosophy: An Exhibit in Special Collections”
(Memorial Library, Room 984)
This symposium brings together contributors to a newly burgeoning mode of work that sits at—and defies—the boundaries between scholarly research and creative art related to nature and the history of science. How does research on past scientific ideas and practices inform art? How do present-day scientific, historical, and experiential methods help us understand the relations between artistic and scientific practices of the past and open new relations in the present? Just how does work that bridges science, history, and art, or that merges scholarship and creative production, disrupt the traditional conventions of artistic and scholarly spaces? Conversely, what sorts of spaces can provide suitable homes for such work? Scholars, artists, and scholar-artists at all career levels at the UW-Madison will join invited external speakers to present their responses to these questions and engage in group reflection on how we might advance this work in all its forms.
Schedule:
Friday, March 3: (Memorial Library Special Collections)
1:15-1:30: registration and viewing of Special Collections exhibition
1:30: Welcome and Introduction to Symposium: Lynn Nyhart, Professor, History of Science, UW-Madison
1:45-3:15: Part 1: Interdisciplinary Spaces
Sarah Anne Carter, Curator and Director of Research, Chipstone Foundation (Milwaukee), “Apparent Categories: Material Stories for the 21st Century”
Carin Berkowitz, Director, Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, Chemical Heritage Foundation (Philadelphia), “Anatomy Folios and Dissection Rooms as Spaces of Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Conflict”
Discussion moderator: Ann Smart Martin, Professor, Art History and Director, Material Culture Program, UW-Madison
3:15-3:45: Break (look at Special Collections exhibit!)
3:45-5:15: Keynote Lecture (Memorial Library Special Collections):
Pamela H. Smith, Seth Low Professor of History and Director, Center for Science and Society, Columbia University: “Making Art and Knowing Nature in Early Modern Europe: The Making and Knowing Project”
Abstract: Through large scale interdisciplinary collaboration and “expert crowd sourcing,” the Making and Knowing Project explores the history and nature of craft knowledge and its relationship to art and science. The Project reconstructs in a laboratory the instructions and “recipes” for technical procedures contained in a sixteenth-century French compilation of artistic and technical recipes. This lecture will introduce the structure, activities, and aims of the Project, highlighting the insights into materials, techniques, pre-modern understandings of nature, and craft knowledge that have resulted from the Project since its founding in 2014.
Introduction and Discussion moderator: Florence Hsia, Professor and Chair, Department of the History of Science, UW-Madison
Dinner (on your own)
Saturday, March 4: Part 2: Making Interdisciplinarity Between Scholarship and Art (Pyle Center 313)
9:00: Continental Breakfast (Pyle Center 313)
9:30-11:30: Single-Scholar Interdisciplinarity
Shira Brisman, Assistant Professor, Art History, UW-Madison, “The Inside of Art”
Gregory Vershbow, Lecturer, Art, UW-Madison, “Inventing Folly”
Helen J. Bullard, Interdisciplinary Special Committee Ph.D. candidate, UW-Madison, “Hard Lines”
Discussion moderator: Robin Rider, Curator of Special Collections, Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison
11:30-1 pm: lunch on your own
1-2 pm: Martha Glowacki, Gallery talk, Chazen Museum
2-2:15: Break: make your way back to the Pyle Center!
2:15-3:45: Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Catherine Jackson, Assistant Professor, History of Science, UW-Madison, and Tracy Drier, Master Glassblower, Dept. of Chemistry, UW-Madison, “Glass in the Flame of a Proper Lamp”
3:45-4:00: Break (Snack available at Pyle Center)
4:00-5:15: Final discussion: Panel: Lynn Nyhart, Martha Glowacki, Shira Brisman (7 min. ea.) and then lead discussion
6:00: Dinner for presenters and moderators