ÌÇÐÄTV

Greek and Roman art and literature reveal a fascination with the processes of production. Literary texts and artefacts that depict and engage with such processes show that the transubstantiation of raw materials into usable, valuable and exchangeable objects was often invested with metaphysical, philosophical, social, and even political meanings which were central to how ancient societies thought about themselves and the world. Such cultural responses to making are often generated by a deep awareness of the value of human and natural labour, which in today’s industrialised societies (and hence in scholarship) often remains unnoticed.
Choose from two full-day workshops, mosaics or textiles, and then join us for the evening discussion and talk.
Over the course of the day, debates will be stimulated on the personal, hands-on nature of making and the way production has become an embedded part of the way that we think about ourselves and the world around us. The two case studies are chosen to illustrate how laborious processes of production impacted the ancients' thinking about core philosophical and socio-political issues. The talks will explore how the artistic production was employed by poets and artists to reflect on ideas as fundamental to human existence as gender, procreation, and the humans’ balance with the cosmos. Together the events will investigate these cultural responses to craft and the different impacts they had.
The workshop is FREE, benefiting from the generous sponsorship of the Arts and Humanities Festival, KCL, and the Leverhulme Trust. However, there is a limited number of places.
YOU CAN BOOK ONLINE at:
Organised by Emmanuela Bakola (University of ÌÇÐÄTV) and Will Wootton (King's College London)