̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Fitzwilliam Museum

Report highlights ̽��ֱ��’s under-researched African collections

ta385 — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 06:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��'s collections include an estimated 350,000 artefacts, alongside natural history specimens and human/ancestral remains, from Africa, according to a new report aiming to promote further research, collaboration and engagement, especially with African scholars and communities. ̽��ֱ��report emphasises that the labour and expertise of countless unnamed African people is hidden in the histories of these collections.

Paris 1924 exhibition at ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam: Beyond Chariots of Fire

ta385 — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 18:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��1924 Paris Olympics stars in a major Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition exploring the sport, art and bodies behind a pivotal Games. Exhibits speak of surprising partnerships, competing interests and unresolved tensions.

Beyond the nuclear family at the Fitzwilliam Museum

ta385 — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 05:00:00 +0000

An unprecedented Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition explores the family, informed by psychological research from the ̽��ֱ��'s Centre for Family Research. Its curator hopes to open minds to newer family forms including those with LGBTQ+ parents and families created by assisted reproduction.

Kerry James Marshall donates portrait of Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates Jr to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

jek67 — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 08:14:45 +0000

̽��ֱ��work is Marshall’s first ever formal, painted portrait of a living sitter (not including self-portraits), and is only the second work by the world-renowned American artist to join the collection of a public institution in the UK. ̽��ֱ��painting was unveiled at ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum on 2 October 2023 where it will be on free, public display for the first time.

Gates is a literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who is currently the Alphonse Fletcher ̽��ֱ�� Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard ̽��ֱ��. He is responsible for rediscovering some of the earliest known African-American novels and has published extensively on the recognition of African-American literature as part of the Western canon. Gates was the first African-American person to be awarded a Paul Mellon Fellowship at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� in 1973 when he was 22 years old. He stayed on at Cambridge to complete a PhD in English. In 2022 the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge awarded Gates an honorary degree, one of the highest accolades it can bestow upon those who have made outstanding achievements in their respective fields.

Marshall’s painting 'Henry Louis Gates Jr 2020' depicts the acclaimed intellectual seated in a windowed room, in front of a desk which holds an Emmy award and a small stack of his books, including ̽��ֱ��Signifying Monkey and Wonders of the African World. ̽��ֱ��idea for the portrait was initiated when an image of Gates was included in a 2018 exhibition curated by the Black Cantabs Research Society, a student group set up in 2015 to create a link between past black scholars, present students, and prospective students. Then, in spring of 2019, Clare College hung a photographic portrait of Gates in its Graduate Common Room. When visiting Cambridge for the unveiling of that photograph on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Mellon Fellowship, Gates was inspired by the historic, richly coloured portraits which hang in Old Court. Following a discussion with Kerry James Marshall, a close friend, the two decided to create a colour portrait of Gates which would be gifted to the ̽��ֱ��.

Kerry James Marshall’s work reveals and questions the social constructs of beauty, taste, and power. Engaged in an ongoing dialogue with six centuries of representational painting, Marshall has deftly reinterpreted and updated its tropes, compositions, and styles, even pulling talismans from the canvases of his forbearers and recontextualizing them within a modern setting. At the centre of his prodigious oeuvre, which also includes drawings, sculpture, photography, and video, is the critical recognition of the conditions of invisibility so long ascribed to black bodies in the Western pictorial tradition, and the creation of what he calls a ‘counter-archive’ that reinscribes these figures within its narrative arc. Marshall is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary artists working today, and has exhibited widely around the world.

̽��ֱ��portrait is now on view for free at ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum.

Kerry James Marshall, one of the leading international artists working today, has donated a portrait of prolific author, literary scholar and award-winning filmmaker Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates Jr to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This is a very important donation - not only as this is the first portrait of a living person that Marshall, one of the most significant artists of our time, has ever created but also that it depicts one of our remarkable alumni and honorary graduates, half a century after he first came to study here in 1973

Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Photographer: Sean Smith

Artist Kerry James Marshall and Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates Jr stand in front of the donated portrait

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance

jek67 — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 07:04:00 +0000

A major new exhibition explores Cambridge's role in slavery, the people it affected and their resistance to it.

Assisted reproduction kids grow up just fine – but it may be better to tell them early about biological origins

cg605 — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 05:00:52 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, by ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers, is the first to examine the long-term effects of different types of third-party assisted reproduction on parenting and child adjustment, as well as the first to investigate prospectively the effect of the age at which children were told that they were conceived by egg donation, sperm donation or surrogacy.

̽��ֱ��results, published today in Developmental Psychology, suggest that the absence of a biological connection between children and parents in assisted reproduction families does not interfere with the development of positive relationships between them or psychological adjustment in adulthood. These findings are consistent with previous assessments at age one, two, three, seven, ten and 14.

̽��ֱ��findings overturn previous widely held assumptions that children born by third-party assisted reproduction are at a disadvantage when it comes to wellbeing and family relationships because they lack a biological connection to their parents.

“Despite people's concerns, families with children born through third-party assisted reproduction – whether that be an egg donor, sperm donor or a surrogate – are doing well right up to adulthood,” said Susan Golombok, Professor Emerita of Family Research and former Director of the Centre for Family Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who led the study.

However, they found that mothers who began to tell their children about their biological origins in their preschool years had more positive relationships with them as assessed by interview at age 20, and the mothers showed lower levels of anxiety and depression. Most of the parents who had disclosed did so by age four and found that the child took the news well. This suggests that being open with children about their origins when they are young is advantageous.

In addition, in the final stage of this 20-year study, mothers who had disclosed their child’s origins by seven years old obtained slightly more positive scores on questionnaire measures of quality of family relationships, parental acceptance (mother’s feelings towards young adult), and family communication. For example, only 7% of mothers who had disclosed by age 7 reported problems in family relationships, compared with 22% of those who disclosed after age 7.

̽��ֱ��young adults who had been told about their origins before seven obtained slightly more positive scores on questionnaire measures of parental acceptance (young adult’s perception of mother’s feelings towards them), communication (the extent to which they feel listened to, know what’s happening in their family and receive honest answers to questions), and psychological wellbeing. They were also less likely to report problems on the family relationships questionnaire; whereas 50% of young adults told after age 7 reported such problems, this was true of only 12.5% of those told before age 7.

“There does seem to be a positive effect of being open with children when they’re young – before they go to school – about their conception. It’s something that’s been shown by studies of adoptive families too,” said Golmobok.

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge followed 65 UK families with children born by assisted reproduction – 22 by surrogacy, 17 by egg donation and 26 by sperm donation – from infancy through to early adulthood (20 years old). They compared these families with 52 UK unassisted conception families over the same period.

“ ̽��ֱ��assisted reproduction families were functioning well, but where we did see differences, these were slightly more positive for families who had disclosed,” said Golombok.

Reflecting on their feelings about their biological origins, the young adults were generally unconcerned. As one young adult born through surrogacy put it, “It doesn’t faze me really, people are born in all different ways and if I was born a little bit differently - that’s OK, I understand.”

Another young adult born through sperm donation said, “My dad’s my dad, my mum’s my mum, I've never really thought about how anything’s different so, it's hard to put, I don’t really care.”

Some young adults actively embraced the method of their conception as it made them feel special, “I think it was amazing, I think the whole thing is absolutely incredible. Erm…I don’t have anything negative to say about it at all.”

Researchers found that egg donation mothers reported less positive family relationships than sperm donation mothers. They suggest that this could be due to some mothers’ insecurities about the absence of a genetic connection to their child. This was not reflected in the young adults’ perceptions of the quality of family relationships.

̽��ֱ��team also found that young adults conceived by sperm donation reported poorer family communication than those conceived by egg donation. This could be explained by the greater secrecy around sperm donation than egg donation, sometimes driven by greater reluctance of fathers than mothers to disclose to their child that they are not their genetic parent, and a greater reluctance to talk about it once they have disclosed.

In fact, researchers found that only 42% of sperm donor parents disclosed by age 20, compared to 88% of egg donation parents and 100% of surrogate parents.

“Today there are so many more families created by assisted reproduction that it just seems quite ordinary,” said Golombok. “But twenty years ago, when we started this study, attitudes were very different. It was thought that having a genetic link was very important and without one, relationships wouldn’t work well.

“What this research means is that having children in different or new ways doesn’t actually interfere with how families function. Really wanting children seems to trump everything – that’s what really matters.”

This research was funded by a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award.

Golombok, S; Jones, C; Hall, P; Foley, S; Imrie, S and Jadva, V. A longitudinal study of families formed through third-party assisted reproduction: Mother-child relationships and child adjustment from infancy to adulthood. Developmental Psychology DOI: 10.1037/dev0001526

̽��ֱ��Centre for Family Research is collaborating with the Fitzwilliam Museum on a new exhibition, Real Families: Stories of Change (October – 7 January 2024), curated by Professor Golombok. ̽��ֱ��exhibition will explore the intricacies of families and family relationships through the eyes of artists including Paula Rego, Chantal Joffe, JJ Levine, Lucian Freud and Tracey Emin.

Professor Susan Golombok is author of We Are Family: What Really Matters for Parents and Children (Scribe) which describes researching new family forms from the 1970s to the present day.

Landmark study finds no difference in psychological wellbeing or quality of family relationships between children born by assisted reproduction (egg or sperm donation or surrogacy) and those born naturally at age 20. However, findings suggest that telling children about their biological origins early – before they start school – can be advantageous for family relationships and healthy adjustment.

Having children in different or new ways doesn’t actually interfere with how families function. Really wanting children seems to trump everything – that’s what really matters.

Professor Susan Golombok

Jose Luis Pelaez Inc / DigitalVision via Getty Images

Father and son talking

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̽��ֱ��poetry scholar, the Black Atlantic and the Trembling Hand

cg605 — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 17:37:57 +0000

Mathelinda Nabugodi investigates the impact of colonialism and the slave trade on Romantic poets. Her research has taken her into the archives with unexpected results.

Fitzwilliam Museum prepares to launch Islanders exhibition

ta385 — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 08:30:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam's major new exhibition, the culmination of a three-year research project, explores the evolution of island identity on Cyprus, Crete and Sardinia from the Neolithic to the Romans