Global Arts: Global Histories of Design, 1400-1800, 6 February 2009
Friday 6th February, Seminar Room A, Research Department, the V&A Museum
NOTE this meeting will be an all day one from 10.15am - 4pm
Convened by Giorgio Riello (Warwick) and Glenn Adamson (V&A)
SUMMARY AIMS of this MEETING:
For the purposes of the project, “global design history” is defined not as a history of all design across the world, but as an effort to map and analyse global patterns within the field of design history. Of particular interest as subject matter are such phenomena as trade, diasporas, immigrant communities, entrepôts, cross-geographical production, tourism, outsourcing, hybridism, etc. Such topics are best studied not according to a cumulative logic—in which discrete cultures are seen as combining into new wholes—but rather in terms of cross-geographical networks and flows. In many cases movement has been the determining factor in prompting design change. Equally, cultural exchange has often been made possible through design innovation.
PROGRAMME
Marta Ajmar, V&A, and Luca Mola, University of Warwick
The ‘global renaissance’ – the early modern object as a concrete manifestation of multiplicity.
Respondent: Dana Leibsohn, Smith College.
Anne Gerritsen,University of Warwick
Early modern global material flux as experienced by the population of Jingdezhen.
Respondent: Beverly Lemire, University of Alberta
John Styles, University of Hertfordshire
Cotton textiles as a driver of political economy and global ‘modernity’ in the 18th century, with particular attention to the Indian-Anglo trade.
Respondent: Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College.
Christine Guth, Royal College of Art and Victoria and Albert Museum
Tea ceremony and artefact collection as an instance of cultural transfer within Asia.
Respondent: Timon Screech, School of Oriental and African Studies.
