̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - New Hall

Women's art on show at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

bjb42 — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:40:10 +0000

'Celebrating 25 years of contemporary women's art: the New Hall Art Collection' is on display in the Library's Entrance Hall and brings together an eclectic mix of offerings.

̽��ֱ��works will remain on show at the ̽��ֱ�� Library until the end of the year, as part of the Library's effort to [encourage a sense of creativity as well as academic industry in the Library environment.]

̽��ֱ��New Hall collection on loan to the UL includes works by Charlotte Hodes, Michelle Hungerford, Maud Sulter, Alexis Hunter and Mary Husted.

Sulter's photographic portraits explore the black contribution to world culture and history, drawing on the ancient cultures of Africa. ̽��ֱ��work on loan to the UL, Phalia, features Alice Walker as a personification of the Muse of Comedy and the Bringer of Flowers.

[ ̽��ֱ��works on display include investigations into pattern, form and colour in large canvases by Charlotte Hodes and Michelle Hungerford.

Alexis Hunter's automatic painting was worked on spontaneously, with ideas emerging as she painted.

Mary Husted's painted collages experiment with the interplay between real and illusory space, and 'Dreams, Oracles, Icons' incorporates fragments of images to recall memories and visual experiences of the loss of a child.]

̽��ֱ��UL will also display work from New Hall's 'Thirty Years of Solitude' exhibition. Featuring a selection of Iranian contemporary photographs by women, the original exhibition featured the work of 30 photographers and seven film directors, all of them women living and working in Iran.

Works on display in the Entrance Hall include a set of four photographs by Shadi Ghadirian, entitled 'Be Colourful' and a series of eight photos by Hana Mirjanian entitled 'Self Portrait'.

̽��ֱ��works show how women deal with problems such as religious paternalism, a loss of identity, isolation and war. Much of the photography is loaded with powerful symbolism.

̽��ֱ�� Librarian, Anne Jarvis, said ' ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Library is delighted to play its part in celebrating the anniversary of the New Hall Art Collection. This is the first occasion that a collection of works by women artists has been displayed here, and we hope that everyone who visits the Library will find inspiration in the exhibition.'

A display of contemporary women’s art, from the New Hall Art Collection, has gone on loan to Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

Dreams, Memories, Icons - Mary Husted

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Yes

Hush Don’t Tell: it’s a mother and son reunion

bjb42 — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

With her show, Hush Don’t Tell, fine artist Mary Husted shares some of the most intensely personal episodes of her life: the giving up for adoption of her newborn son, Luke, and their eventual reunion when he traced her as the result of her work being part of the New Hall Art Collection.

̽��ֱ��final piece in the show, which opens today at Murray Edwards College as part of Open Cambridge, is an audio visual projection called Each and Every Year, made jointly by mother and son. Mary’s pencil drawings of Luke from childhood to the present are shown against a backdrop of falling snow, with audio visual effects and soundtrack composed by Luke.

̽��ֱ��New Hall Art Collection – Europe’s largest collection of work by contemporary women artists – began acquiring Mary’s work in 1992, the year of its inception. A year later, her work was chosen for its first, and her second, solo show. ̽��ֱ��mother and son reunion came about only three years ago when Luke, searching for his mother’s name, came across Mary’s collages on the New Hall Art Collection website.

̽��ֱ��artwork that Luke gazed at on the screen of his computer, with the growing realisation that he was looking at an expression of his mother’s feelings about him, is a collage called Dreams, Oracles, Icons. Based on a photograph of Mary taken by her father, it is a portrait of a teenage girl tenderly holding a bird in one hand. On the outer raised surface of the piece, a tiny child is held in space, alone and adrift.

For Luke, Dreams, Oracles, Icons carried a visual message from his natural mother. Not only did it help him to identify her, but it also encouraged him to make contact. He says he’s now thrilled to have been able to contribute to a piece of art that tells their story: “Using my technical knowledge to provide a new medium for Mary to work with, and adding some of my own creative ideas, has been very exciting.”

Throughout her career as a fine artist, Mary’s work has centred on a search for place and identity. Since the reunion with her son, she has dwelt increasingly on themes of memory, loss and retrieval. Of her latest show, Hush Don’t Tell, she says: “This exhibition is a story. I make no apologies for this.” What went untold for so long can now be told. She does this though collages built up by layering paint, paper and semi-transparent pencil drawings into shifting dimensions, incorporating words and images that float and fade, to create an overlapping of time past and time present.

Accompanying the exhibition is a statement written by Mary that takes the viewer back to the straight-laced suburban society of the early 1960s. Mary was 17 and studying at art school when she became pregnant. Bending to family pressures, she agreed to keep her pregnancy secret, give up her baby for adoption, and make a fresh start. “My pregnancy was something shameful and illegitimacy was a serious social stigma,” she says. “I was told to go away and live my life, and forget it.”

Luke was born in the long cold winter of 1963. In the ten days that Mary had with her baby, she made a few pencil drawings of him. “I had no camera and felt the need to capture something of him, something to keep hold of and perhaps something I could give him one day.” Handed over to adoptive parents, Luke acquired a new name and grew up to become a successful businessman who now has his own young family. Meanwhile Mary’s drawings lay at the bottom of a cardboard box, together with a bundle of letters from Luke’s father, a handsome Persian and her first great love.

Time passed. Mary married twice and had four further children, all dearly loved – but she never did she forget Luke, the confusion and disgrace of concealment and the deep sadness of that early loss. In the 1980s, once her children started to fly the nest, she trained as an artist in Cardiff. Working primarily in collage, she began building into her work hints of her experiences by using a process of “hiding and revealing”, playing with surfaces and dimensions, dreams and memories.

In 1992 New Hall launched its Women’s Art Collection and the College President Valerie Pearl wrote to a hundred female artists to ask for donations of their work. Seventy five responded, among them Mary Husted. Curator Ann Jones travelled to Mary’s house in Barry, South Wales, and with typical generosity Mary invited her to choose a piece of work. ̽��ֱ��artwork that Ann selected was Dreams, Oracles, Icons.

“When Ann told me that this was the art work she’d like to have in the New Hall Art Collection, my heart gave a lurch as it’s so acutely personal,” says Mary. “But then I thought, yes, it should go out into the world, because then there would be a tiny, tiny chance that Luke would see it and get in touch. That I would one day meet him was a wish so precious to me that I hardly dared even think about it.”

For 15 years Dreams, Oracles, Icons hung in New Hall Art Collection in Cambridge. Then one day in September 2007 Mary received an email in her junk box with the subject line ‘family tree’. She almost deleted it. ̽��ֱ��message was from Luke who had found his mother’s work online. A flurry of emails followed, they exchanged photographs and after a fortnight they met. Since then, Mary has drawn and drawn him “as if drawing was the only way to get to know the child I lost”.

Mary’s latest show comprises around 30 new pieces created specifically for it. In collaborating to produce an artwork together, she and her son are closing the circle and cementing the bond that held them in their few days together so many years ago, when Mary held her newborn baby in her arms in the knowledge that that this tiny being would soon fly from her life. “I still can’t quite believe what’s happened and what’s still happening - it’s a story that’s far bigger than me,” she says.

Hush Don’t Tell is part of Open Cambridge, a programme of talks, tours and more from 10 to 12 September, opencambridge.cam.ac.uk. ̽��ֱ��exhibition runs from 29 August to 25 September at the Temporary Exhibition Space, New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DF, 3pm to 6pm only on 29 August and then daily, 10am to 6pm, admission free.

Artwork telling the emotional story of a mother and son who were reunited after 45 years by a twist of fate will be shown to the public for the first time this weekend.

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Yes

Families discover hidden treasures in Cambridge museums this summer

bjb42 — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Eleven Cambridge museums and the Botanic Garden have created treasure trails for children to explore. Each venue has their own special museum object ranging from nuggets of gold to toy skeletons.

Every treasure has a fact-finding question and the aim is to answer five correctly to claim a bag of treasure from a museum collection point.

̽��ֱ��museums taking part are:
• Kettle’s Yard
• Whipple Museum of the History of Science
• ̽��ֱ�� Museum of Zoology Cambridge
• Sedgwick Museum
• Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
• ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum
• New Hall Art Collection
• ̽��ֱ��Polar Museum and the Scott Polar Research Institute
• Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Botanic Garden
• Museum of Classical Archaeology
• Cambridge and County Folk Museum, and
• Cambridge Museum of Technology.

̽��ֱ��Passport to Museum Treasure is available free from any of the eleven museums and from the Botanic Garden. ̽��ֱ��passport also has ideas for other upcoming children’s activities, such as Explorer Packs in the Zoology Museum, story time sessions in the Sedgwick Museum and the drawing competition in the Museum of Classical Archaeology.

Mel Rouse, Museum Outreach Coordinator, said: “We hope the Passport to Museums Treasure will help families discover new places to go as well as revisit old favourites. Families can choose to race around the museums in a couple of days or spread their visits out throughout the summer holidays. Either way, it’s a great opportunity for families in and around Cambridge to see what the museums have to offer.”

Completed trails can be entered into a prize draw to win signed books and behind-the-scenes museum tours. Fill in the feedback on the museums’ answer slip for a chance to win.

Entrance to all of the university museums is free, and small charges apply for the Botanic Garden and independent museums.

̽��ֱ��family trail is funded by Renaissance, a government project aiming to increase opportunities for the public to become involved in their museums.

̽��ֱ��Passport to Museum Treasure is running daily throughout the summer until Saturday, September 18.

Hidden treasures are waiting to be discovered in Cambridge’s museums this summer with the help of a free ‘passport’ for children.

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Yes

Let there be Twilight

bjb42 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Families and visitors of all ages have a chance to find out on Wednesday, February 17, when Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� holds its free, annual Twilight at the Museums event from 4.30pm-7pm (Fitzwilliam Museum from 5.30pm).

Now its fourth year, Twilight at the Museums is a massively popular event attracting thousands of visitors from Cambridge and beyond.

At 4.30pm next Wednesday, six ̽��ֱ�� Museums and the Botanic Garden will plunge into darkness – with visitors left to find their way by torchlight around some of their weird and wonderful exhibitions and special craft activities.

This year, for the first time, the New Hall Art Collection on Huntingdon Road will be joining in the twilight festivities, offering activities and storytelling based around their collection of art by female artists.

In addition the Cambridge and County Folk Museum are joining in Twilight events offering a free ghostly storytime. Booking is essential for this session.

Organiser Mel Rouse said “When a museum is locked up for the night, do you wonder what the dinosaurs, statues and mummies get up to? Last year more than 2000 people came along – in just two and a half hours – to find out.

“We would like visitors to experience the thrill of this twilight hour and to see the museums in a whole new way. Visitors can go to one or two of their favourite museums or try somewhere new. But don’t forget to bring your torch to spot what’s lurking in the shadows!

“You might see dinosaurs, orchids, fruit bats, ancient statues, totem poles or even Egyptian mummies emerge dramatically from the shadows. It’s the chance to see the collections in a whole new light!”

̽��ֱ��seven museums taking part are the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Museum of Zoology, Fitzwilliam Museum, New Hall Art Collection, Cambridge and County Folk Museum and the Botanic Garden. Admission is free, with no need to book (except for the Folk Museum). Remember to bring a torch!

Twilight highlights:

Whipple Museum of the History of Science: A twilight-themed family trail. Solve the clues around the gallery leading to their collection of space toys, discover the secret code word and find the treasure!

̽��ֱ�� Museum of Zoology: Discover amazing nocturnal animals and how they see the world at night with trails and craft activities.

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences: See what the dinosaurs get up to after sunset. What will you see twinkling in the twilight?

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology: Follow our Body Trail (or is it a Trail of Bodies?), have a go at drawing dark and light taking inspiration from the totem pole, the samurai armour and any of our other fabulous objects.

Botanic Garden: Experience the magic of the glasshouses after dark. Journey through diverse global habitats including desert, mountains and tropical rainforest. Younger visitors can use torches to hunt for star plants. Entrance by Brookside Gate only.

New Hall Art Collection: Create a mural of silhouettes and then join us for a story at 6:30pm about what you have made. Free parking is available

Fitzwilliam Museum: visitors can experience the museum’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities in a new light, following an 18-month gallery refurbishment. Please note the Fitzwilliam Museum will not be opening until 5:30pm.

Cambridge and County Folk Museum: Actor Mike Maran will be in the museum's attic to entertain with some spine-tingling stories. Come from 6pm for the opportunity to see some of unusual exhibits including moles paws and witches bottles. Advanced Booking essential. Phone 01223 355159 or e-mail info@folkmuseum.org.uk.

Twilight at the museums is funded by Renaissance in the Regions, a government programme to develop and transform England’s regional museums.

For further information visit www.cam.ac.uk/museums or join the Cambridge Museums Facebook page.

Ever wondered what happens in a museum once the lights go out?

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Yes

‘Women in Comics’ Conference

bjb42 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

‘Women in Comics’, is a one day conference organised by the curator of the New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College.

A variety of artists, illustrators and authors will speak, including cartoonist Kate Evans.

Kate combines words and pictures for political effect in her work. Author of several groundbreaking pieces, she has focussed on topics from capitalism to motherhood, genetic experiments to environmental activism.

Nicola Streeten will speak on gender and the autographic novel in the twenty-first century. Nicola has worked as an illustrator since 1996, her work applies a humorous cartoon style to people, maps and buildings.

One of Nicola’s current projects is a joint venture with conference co-ordinator Sarah Lightman. As artists and illustrators, both believe that there is a new wave of comic emerging and felt that they should share their passion by launching a monthly graphic novel reading group and forum ‘Laydeez do Comics'.

A further speaker at the conference is Catriona MacLeod, a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Glasgow. Catriona will look at and discuss the representation of women in French-Language comic strips such as 'Barbarella'.

Woodrow Phoenix, who is recognised for his graphic and playful work, with unusual use of formal experimentation, will question if autobiography is a trap with graphic designer Corinne Pearlman.

̽��ֱ��event is part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas Week, which invites visitors of all ages to explore centuries of ideas celebrating the ̽��ֱ��’s 800th Anniversary year.

̽��ֱ��conference has been organised by Dr. Laurence Grove, Sarah Lightman, Catriona MacLeod and Amanda Rigler, Curator and Outreach Manager of ̽��ֱ��New Hall Art Collection. ̽��ֱ��conference is supported by ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Glasgow.

Sarah Lightman said: ‘What is so special about the event is the mixing of women comic artists and academics, and in both fields, we are fortunate to be hosting those who are established and those who are emerging names.’

Containing nearly 350 pieces of contemporary artwork by women artists, the collection at Murray Edwards College is on permanent display, with many of the pieces available to view online.

By virtue of its size and specialisation, the collection has become the most significant of its kind in the UK, and second in size only to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC.

Murray Edwards College is a women’s college of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.
Pre-booking for the conference is essential. Tickets cost £12 (£10 students) and will include a light lunch, tea and coffee.

Please email Amanda Rigler at: art@newhall.cam.ac.uk to book tickets.

For a full list of speakers please use the link top right of this page.

Enthusiasts, curators, practitioners and academics alike will discuss the representation of ‘Women in Comics’ in the first conference of its kind at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� on Sunday, 25th October.

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Yes

Queen’s Birthday Honours

bjb42 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Knights Bachelor

Professor David Baulcombe
Awarded for services to Plant Science

David Baulcombe is a Professor of Botany at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and is a Fellow of Trinity College. He is a plant scientist and geneticist with interests in genetic regulation, genetic disease resistance and gene silencing. Together with Andrew Hamilton he discovered the small interfering RNA that is the specificity determinant in RNA-mediated gene silencing and, with other members of his research group, he helped unravel the importance of small interfering RNA in defence against viruses and in epigenetics. For this discovery Professor Baulcombe was honoured with the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.

CBE

Dr Kate Pretty
Awarded for services to Higher Education

Dr Kate Pretty is currently the ̽��ֱ��’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Strategy. She is an active archaeologist specialising in the early medieval period and is President of the Council for British Archaeology. Dr Pretty is Principal of Homerton College where she has been since 1991. Prior to Homerton she was Senior Tutor at New Hall, where she had been an undergraduate and postgraduate before becoming the college’s first home-grown Fellow.

Professor Lynn Gladden
Awarded for services to Chemical Engineering.

Professor Lynn Gladden is the Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering and Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. She was awarded an O.B.E. for services to chemistry in 2001 and is a Fellow at Trinity College.

Stephen Cleobury
Awarded for services to Music

Stephen Cleobury, has been the Organist and Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge since 1982, and, since 1983, conductor of the orchestra and chorus of the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Musical Society.

OBE

Professor Sheila Rodwell*
Awarded for services to Health Care

Professor Rodwell is Director of the MRC Centre for Nutrition in Cancer Epidemiology Prevention and Survival at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. Professor Rodwell is also Head of the Diet and Cancer Group of the MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit in Cambridge,and a Principal Investigator of the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC) in Norfolk study. She has been a life Member Clare Hall in 2004 and became an honorary Professor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in 2006 for her work on nutritional epidemiology.

*It is with great sadness that we announce that Professor Rodwell died only a few days after her OBE was made public.

Five Cambridge academics were named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list announced last weekend.

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Yes

Ramsay Murray Lecture 2009

bjb42 — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��Ramsay Murray Lecture is an annual event organised by Selwyn College following a bequest from the late Lt Col Ramsay Murray, a loyal alumnus of the College who was resident at Selwyn during the 1930s.

Since the series began in 1994, a number of well-known academics have spoken at the event, including Sir Michael Howard, Sir Keith Thomas, Professor Roy Porter, Professor Ian Clark, Professor Lawrence Freedman, Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, Professor Niall Ferguson, Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, Professor David Cannadine, Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith and last year Professor Quentin Skinner, formerly Regius Professor of Modern History.

Chair in Modern History at King’s College London, Professor Jordanova has written widely about the cultural history of science and medicine, on gender and the family and on visual and material culture. She read natural sciences at New Hall, Cambridge and was previously the Director of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and also held positions at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, York, East Anglia and Essex. Professor Jordanova is a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

̽��ֱ��Lecture will be held at 5.30pm in Room LG19, Faculty of Law, Sidgwick Site, Cambridge. All are welcome. Admission is free.

Professor Ludmilla Jordanova will give Selwyn College's Ramsay Murray Lecture tonight, Friday, entitled ‘Heroism Revisited’.

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Yes

Jack, Emerald and Eve (and 47 others) get a taste of Cambridge

bjb42 — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

All three of these high-achievers will be the first in their families to go to university. They were among 50 students from schools and colleges in Essex, Sheffield and the North West who spent four days at a summer school organised jointly by Emmanuel College, Fitzwilliam College and Murray Edwards College (New Hall).

A programme of tours, talks and cultural and social activities gave them a taste of what it might be like to study at Cambridge. “It's been a real eye opener to spend some time here and to find that Cambridge seems modern, liberal and open to state schools,” said Jack, who is a pupil at Davenant Foundation School.

“ ̽��ֱ��advantages of studying at Cambridge would be the one-to-one teaching and the fact that you'd be pushed. It would set you up for life.”

Emerald, who goes to High Storrs School, said that she had come to Cambridge on a school visit a few years ago. “That day was amazing — I just fell in love with it all and it spurred me into working hard and aiming high. Cambridge is the best place to study the languages I'm interested in — German and Russian.”

Eve (pictured centre with two other students from Birkenhead College) said she was planning to make an application to Cambridge through the Special Access Scheme as she had missed a significant amount of her secondary education, due to school phobia brought about by bullying. She is now achieving high grades.

“I ended up at a hospital school where I realised what I was missing out on and I took myself back into school. I'm now doing my A levels at Birkenhead College which is great. I love the atmosphere of Cambridge with the old buildings. It's somewhere I feel I'd be happy and do well,” she said.

Subo Wijeyeratne, School Liaison Officer for Emmanuel, Fitzwilliam and Murray Edwards Colleges, said he hoped that the summer school had demystified Cambridge for those who had felt it was socially elitist, old-fashioned or “out of reach”.

“One of the strengths of the summer school is the interaction between the visiting students and the current undergraduates who have stayed on after the end of term to help. They are able to connect with pupils just a few years younger and make them feel at ease and able to ask questions. Our visitors can often relate to undergraduates more easily than to academics and staff - and the undergraduates themselves are often the best ambassadors Cambridge could hope to have.” he said.

Jack Cadman goes to a comprehensive in Loughton and wants to study economics; Emerald Sherlock-Mold is a pupil at a large state school in Sheffield and has a talent for languages; Eve Annable attends a Further Education college in Birkenhead and is passionate about English.

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Yes