Academics from the centre are involved in a new partnership with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Victoria and Albert Museum, part of the AHRC Research Networks and Workshops (Creativity) Scheme, entitled ‘Global Arts: East Meets West. Creativity and Cultural Interchange in the Early Modern World’. This project explores the impact of east-west cultural interchange on creativity and innovation between the 15th and 19th centuries.

The network organises regular meetings, joining academics and curators from different disciplines together to exchange knowledge, sources and information. The introductory meeting was held at Warwick in January 2007; the second at the Ashmolean Museum in May 2007 focused on how ideas and technologies were invented and travelled along trade routes. Contributors included Craig Clunas, who gave a provocative overview of the theoretical approaches to the material culture of East-West transfer; Shelagh Vainker and Oliver Watson from the Ashmolean, who presented work on Chinese ceramics and cross cultural transfer in Islamic pottery; Ian Glover, who introduced his work on the spread of glass production from the Near East, via South Asia, and from China into northern Vietnam; and Jan Christie, who commented on her work on Javanese temple tax records. There was lively debate and discussion of ways forward. These will be explored at the third meeting in November 2007 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where contributors will consider the impact of court cultures on East-West exchange. If you would like to know more about the Network please contact Helen Clifford at museum@swaledale.org

‘Global Arts: East Meets West. Creativity and Cultural Interchange in the Early Modern World’.