Lectures & Events

This lecture takes as its starting point the major exhibition “Entangled Pasts, 1768-now: art, colonialism and change” held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2024. I will review the exhibition’s contents, aims and guiding curatorial principles as well as its methodological challenges, while reflecting on the Academy’s various historical relationships to the institution of transatlantic slavery.

Aaron Hunter, scientist and reserarcher, will give an introduction to 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning and we will discover how she searched the Jurassic rocks of England's south coast to unearth what where believed to be sea dragons and which we now call marine reptiles. The lecture will look at the social history and influences of Mary Anning and the 19th century scientists that she would have worked with. We will not only look at these spectacular fossil remains, but also see how palaeontologists have revealed how these ancient extinct animals lived.

Courtesy of The Arts Society Berlin

The long shadow of the Arts and Crafts Movement has hung over English gardening for most of the twentieth century. The dominance of Miss Jekyll and the enduring popularity of gardens at Hidcote and Sissinghurst have proved to be an enduring legacy. There were always subversive undercurrents of alternative styles and influences which, as the new century gets into its stride, have gained a greater importance and momentum. Post-Modernism, rich in symbolism, has, in gardens like Portrack, Little Sparta and Througham Court, explored the worlds of literature and science, while plants, for centuries an abiding passion of English gardeners, have continued to cast their spell, with newly-discoveries enriching gardens across the country. Towards the end of the century the New Perennial Movement, originating in Europe, has allied itself to our increasing desire to go organic, and the interest in woodland and wild-flower meadows, to produce a freer, gentler style of planting, spearheaded by Tom Stuart-Smith, perhaps more in tune with the Twenty-First Century.  

Courtesy of The Arts Society Berlin

The singer-composer was the colleague and friend of Rossini, Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, and Tchaikovsky, of writers such as George Sand, Turgenev, Flaubert and Zola, and artists like Delacroix. This talk explores how Viardot (1821-1910) shaped her artistic life in a century of turmoil.