Four School of Art graduate students will present their research as part of the 33rd annual Art History Symposium on Friday, March 15, at the University of Arizona Museum of Art’s Retablo Gallery from 9 am to 4 pm.
One of only 30 symposia in the country and the oldest of its kind, the free event is organized and led by graduate students.
This year’s symposium, “Natural/Unnatural,” will cover various topics related to the boundaries and overlaps between “natural” and “unnatural” environments, societies, identities and more.
The keynote speaker will be John-Michael H. Warner, an associate Art History professor at Kent State University trained in gender and women’s studies.
Natural talent, natural materials, natural world. In the study of the visual arts, these phrases are frequently used. However, what does “natural” really mean? As recent trends in decolonization, feminist theory, critical race theory and other disciplines have called into question commonly held assumptions and value judgements, the symposium seeks to call attention to the binaries, inherent biases, assumptions, policies and practices created through such terminology.
Here is the schedule for the symposium, including all the talks:
8:30 a.m. – Arrival and settling in
9 a.m. – Welcoming Remarks
9:15 a.m. – Session 1 (Race and Space: American Environments)
Alyssa Moorman (she/her), MA University of Arizona
“The American Landscape in Black and White: Social and Political Landscapes of George Washington’s Mount Vernon”
Audrey Molloy (she/her), MA University of Arizona
“Semi-Tropical Simulacrum: Considering the Palm Tree”
Joanna Platt (she/her), PhD Temple University
“Red Lines and Incised Lines: Visualizing Works Progress Administration Policies through the Prints of Dox Thrash”
10:45 am- Session 2 (The Natural World in Art: Idealization or Reality)
Francesca Butterfield (she/her), PhD Princeton University
“Perspectives on Extraction: Mining Diagrams and Photographs from the Clarence King Survey”
Jackie Streker (she/they), PhD Temple University
“Printing Geology: Landscape Etchings of Albrecht Altdorfer”
Jennifer Weiss (she/they), MA University of Arizona
“Imaging Geologic Time: The Catastrophist-Uniformitarianist Debate in 19th Century American Landscape Paintings”
12:10 pm- Lunch Break
1:15 pm- Session 3 (The Natures of Gender and Queer Identity)
Caitlin La Dolce (she/her), MA University of Georgia
“Plastic Assemblage: A New Language for Queer Futurity”
Teresa Fleming (she/her), PhD UC Irvine
“Unnatural Disasters: Recontextualizing Crises in the Work of Kang Seung Lee and Derek Jarman”
Sarah Greenwell-Scott (she/her), PhD University of Arizona
“Decolonizing the Heteronormative Gaze: Gender in Contemporary Indigenous Photography”
2:40 pm- Keynote
John-Michael H. Warner (he/they), Associate Professor Kent State University
“The Vanishing Present: The U.S.-Mexico Frontera”
3:50 pm- Closing Remarks
In coordination with the symposium, the School of Art’s Art History Graduate Student Association (AHGSA) also will be holding the “Natural/Unnatural” art exhibition from March 12-22 in the Palo Verde Gallery, 1231 N. Fremont Ave. A free reception will be held Thursday, March 14, from 6 to 8 p.m.
For more questions, contact Sarah Greenwell-Scott.
