MA Art History and Curating curatorial projects and partners

Grand Union, Digbeth First Friday, June 2024

‘Unmasking || Remapping’ was a series of events designed and planned by students from the MA Art History and Curating at University of Birmingham. This programme responded to Grand Union’s exhibition, ‘Love is Real, and It’s Inside Of My Computer’ by Babeworld x utopian_realism, exploring themes of neurodiversity, inclusivity and accessibility.

The programme included lots of exciting events. There was a Masked Ball with performances by utopian_realism and Naoibh McNamee. Students took part in creative workshops run by Babeworld and Bunny Bissoux, and an Emotional Mapping session with Lee Mackenzie. There was also a film screening and Q&A with Babeworld and Anne Duffau, in partnership with Flatpack Film Festival. As part of the project, the students commissioned a new publication made by The Holodeck. It featured writing from Roo Dhissou, Bunny Bissoux, and Naoibh McNamee.

Visit the Unmasking || Remapping project webpage

Botanical Illustrations from the V&A, 22 June – 10 November 2024

There are almost 1,000 botanical illustrations in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection – ranging from scientific diagrams documenting medicinal plants to merchandising images that adorn seed packets. Many of these illustrations also exist as objects of beauty in their own right. They depict flowers and plants that have, over the centuries, had their own particular uses and values.

Some of these histories are well-known; others are now more obscure. The students developing this exhibition selected some of the most intriguing and beautiful botanical illustrations from the V&A’s collection, – as well as items from the University of Birmingham’s Winterbourne House and Garden and Cadbury Research Library – to tell these stories. The images were selected on the grounds of the beauty and biographies of the plants and offer valuable insights on the roles these alluring and complex living creatures played in medicine, commerce, gender roles and colonial histories. Their research is presented throughout the exhibition in conversation with contributions from gardeners and natural scientists, social scientists and curators, revealing the fascinating and often unexpected lives of plants – and the images that represent them.

The Hidden Lives of Plants was enhanced by a programme of engagement events for all ages, including a nature-themed family art festival in August and a series of gallery talks.

View The Hidden Lives of Plants project webpage

9 - 24 June 2023

There Has to Be Somewhere is a group exhibition featuring artists Rachael House, Lucy Hutchinson, and Emelia Kerr Beale. It presents sculptural, textile, ceramic and film work that explore themes of well-being, support, self-acceptance and self-advocacy that spark conversations around disability, queer identity and feminist issues.

The exhibition title is a hopeful yet urgent message towards somewhere we can take comfort and make our own; sanctuary is not primarily a place but something that can be lived. Actively seeking to share their personal experiences and collective histories, these individual works challenge societal norms of belonging. 

• Visit the There Has to Be Somewhere webpage

Mastering the Market: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from Woburn Abbey, 17 June - 24 September 2023

Mastering the Market focused on themes of patronage and collecting in the innovative 17th-century Dutch art market – from the unique character of artistic culture in the newly independent Dutch Republic, through art dealership and attribution, to the development of new genres.

The show featured one of the largest and most significant groups of Old Master paintings from the collection of the Dukes of Bedford to be exhibited in a public gallery since the 1950s, including works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Anthony van Dyck and Frans Hals.

• Visit the Mastering the Market page

17 June - 24 September 2022

Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528) combined an unparalleled virtuosity as painter and draftsman with an innovative approach to printmaking. He also possessed a shrewd entrepreneurial sense, and an ability to portray subjects and issues that appealed to the public and the highest-ranking patrons alike – including the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I. These factors ensured his lasting reputation as the most important and influential artist of the Renaissance in northern Europe.

This exhibition, explored how Dürer made his name, featured his finest works from the Royal Collection. It includes one of only two paintings by Dürer – and the sole portrait – in the UK, along with rare drawings and iconic prints.

• Visit Dürer: The Making of a Renaissance Master exhibition page

_{The Age of Dreamers is Over was a group show navigating the historical scales of anthropogenic* rupture, as well as the potential for collective healing.}

_{This immersive exhibition brought together interactive sculpture, sound, and light works from artists Louise Beer, Jack Lewdjaw, and Mina Heydari-Waite. Reflecting upon the notion of ruination and rebuilding, The Age of Dreamers is Over explored the impact of human hands on one another and on the very world we live in.}

_{View The Age of Dreamers is Over webpage}

_{*Anthropogenic: originating in human activity.}

Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Royal Collection

Exquisite and intriguing 16th- and 17th-century drawings by Dutch and Flemish artists, including Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Dyck, featured in Making a Mark.

Lent by Her Majesty the Queen from the Royal Collection’s extensive holdings in the Print Room at Windsor Castle, this was the first time in 25 years that so many of these drawings have been shown together.

This exhibition – which also includes four exceptional drawings from the Barber’s own extensive collection of works on paper – examined the functions and purposes of drawing, and its importance to the artist’s profession. It discussed the techniques and materials used, and the varied ways artists found inspiration for drawings – whether from observation or memory, or somewhere between the two, which enabled artists to blur the distinctions between real life and imagination. 

Visit the Making a Mark webpage

On Tropism consisted of an online performance by composer Dan Cippico; illustrations displayed on billboards across Birmingham’s canals by Mengxia Liu and a mail art project by photographer Adam Neal. Each artist’s work was accompanied by online panel talks, providing space for everyone to discuss the themes and topics addressed within their work in more detail.

Tropism’ is a biological term that usually refers to the movement of a plant’s growth, in response to external stimulus. It encapsulates how both curator and artists conceptions of art making and display have been challenged and expanded, during a time of rapid adaption to new and untested ways of working. The innovative mechanisms of display utilised by In Tropism were the result of approaching the many obstacles brought about by a global pandemic as an opportunity to think creatively.

Visit the On Tropism web page

Borderlines of the Present, celebrates the recent works of two UK-based artists Farwa Moledina and Nick Jordan. They explore themes of resistance to binary perceptions by giving voice to communities – Muslim women and Tripolitan craftsmen – that exist in ‘in between’ spaces.

This project attempts to bridge the communication gap in art appreciation by subtly guiding the readers through the social, art historical and political contexts of the artworks. By launching Borderlines of the Present as a website and a print publication, it catered to people who enjoy the intimate act of reading whether online or in the feel of a book.

• This free publication is available to order via Grand Union.

Online exhibition

Pyramids, temples, sphinxes and shrines: breathtaking images of these ancient and often iconic landmarks, captured by pioneering photographer Francis Bedford, provided new insights for Victorians into the historic and biblical sites of the eastern Mediterranean. 

Bedford (1815 – 1894) accompanied Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII), who in 1862 was dispatched by his mother, Queen Victoria, on a four-month journey through Egypt, the Holy Land and Greece. The odyssey was intended to introduce the prince to ancient and contemporary civilisations, cultures and political figures – contributing to his education as future king and ruler of the British Empire.

The first photographer ever to accompany a royal tour, Bedford exhibited these exquisite examples of early photography soon after his return, to great acclaim. They brought to life for the British public sites previously only encountered in prints and paintings, and the Barber’s display considered the perception of these cultures and of the concept of empire during the Victorian era. The photographs are complemented here by an extract from the prince’s own handwritten journal, contemporary commentary from illustrated newspapers and magazines, and drawings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema from the University’s Cadbury Research Library.

14 June - 1 September 2019

During the 17th century, Cassiano dal Pozzo and his younger brother, Carlo Antonio, embarked upon an epic attempt to document and record the major fields of knowledge of their day.

They assembled a 'Paper Museum’ consisting of over 10,000 watercolours, drawings and prints illustrating subjects as diverse as antiquities, architecture, zoology, botany and geology, social customs and ceremonies, costumes, portraits, topography and military maps. Their collection represents one of the most significant attempts before the age of photography to embrace human knowledge in visual form.

Most of the dal Pozzo collection was acquired by George III in 1762, and is still part of the Royal Collection today. The show included more than 40 objects, including 17 ‘Paper Museum’ works lent by Her Majesty The Queen from the Royal Collection, some of which have never been publicly displayed before.

Generous loans by Her Majesty The Queen were enhanced by rare books and geological specimens from the University’s Cadbury Research Library and the Lapworth Museum respectively. The exhibition was accompanied by a booklet researched and written by the student co-curators.

The exhibition received excellent press coverage, including a 5-star review from Jonathan Jones in The Guardian; The Art Newspaper.

• Visit The Paper Museum webpage

3 - 18 May 2019

On the Subject of Precarity was a group exhibition with artists Betsy Bradley, Gareth Proskourine-Barnett and Rafal Zajko.  Informed by a widespread sense of collective societal anxiety, the exhibition explored the perception of precarity in the entanglement of past, present and imagined futures.

The three artists collectively engage with shifting architectures through a focus on materiality, the significance of the fragment, and a fluctuating relationship to place; the exhibition uses the tangible to make visible political and environmental concerns. Whilst considering precarity in a broader sense, the exhibition was also a reflection on its imminent locale. The impending arrival of HS2 will drastically alter Birmingham’s cityscape, and represents a significant threat to the existing artistic community within Digbeth. On the Subject of Precarity highlights the precarious position of art, and consequently artists, in a time of repeated cuts to artistic and cultural funding.

On the Subject of Precarity opened on Digbeth First Friday in May, where visitors were invited to watch the deconstruction of Rafal Zajko’s ice sculpture – a performance piece which explored ideas surrounding instability.

1-10 June 2018

Three Models for Change featured new commissions and existing works by the artists Chris Alton, Ian Giles and Greta Hauer. It asserted the importance of historical awareness in establishing future potentials of communities.

The works fluctuated between three actual and staged narratives: the formation of a fictional Quaker-punk band; the staging of cross-generational Queer histories; and the uncertainty surrounding a newly formed volcanic island and its territorial disputes. Ian Giles also developed a new performance project on queer spaces for the exhibition.

Masterworks on Paper from the Royal Collection, 15 June - 23 September 2018

This first exhibition in the partnership with the Royal Collection Trust explored the use of drawings – as preparatory sketches and studies for paintings and frescoes, tapestries, sculpture or architecture, and as detailed working designs that allow an artist to explore the subject or trial compositional ideas. It included a wealth of exquisite works on paper by outstanding Renaissance and Baroque Masters, including Bernini, Carracci, Claude and Poussin.

The artists featured used a great variety of techniques and media, and their work thus provides a rich introduction to the practical skills of drawing.

Generous loans by Her Majesty The Queen were supplemented by items from the Barber’s collection. The exhibition was accompanied by a booklet researched and written by the student co-curators; available at the Barber.

• Visit the Drawn to Perfection webpage

2-10 June 2017

FLUX explored the connections between the coming together of different multidisciplinary artworks and the visitor’s cohabitation of the gallery space. It invited the viewer to question the norms and perceptions of different artistic disciplines by inviting them to move among artworks that challenge those boundaries, and encouraged them to reflect upon how the artwork either challenges or adapts to its surroundings.

FLUX featured work by established and emerging artists from across the Midlands region: Mark Houghton, James Lomax, Anna Parker and Zoe Robertson. The artists made new artwork for the show, responding to the gallery space.

The students also established themselves as a new curatorial collective, Room7. They hosted a symposium, and successfully crowd funded to publish a reflective publication on the exhibition.

9 June - 24 September 2017

The dawn of photography in the mid-19th century made portraiture accessible to a much wider public. This exhibition explored early photographic studio portraiture, including the popular carte-de-visite format.

It examined how photographic techniques, backdrops, props, costumes and poses enabled public figures – ranging from Oscar Wilde through Ellen Terry to Queen Victoria – to fashion and promote their own identities. It also suggested how studio photography contributed to the modern idea of celebrity.

Curated in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, it also featured loans from the University’s Cadbury Research Library and Research and Cultural Collections.

• Visit the More Real than Life webpage

Court, Patrons & Writers in Shakespeare's Circle, 10 June – 25 September 2016

Marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, this exhibition, the Barber’s first ever exploring Elizabethan and Jacobean art, focused on the Bard’s chief patrons at court, and on other leading writers – rivals and associates.

Organised in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, London, it featured major paintings, sculpture, miniatures and prints from the period 1590-1620, including outstanding portraits of Anne of Denmark, the Earls of Essex and Derby, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher and others, as well as iconic images of Shakespeare himself. A rare first Folio and other richly ornamented books of the time was lent by the University of Birmingham’s Cadbury Research Library.

The show explored how artists construct character through portraiture, while delving into the lively world of the court during a golden age of British cultural history.

• Visit the All the World's a Stage website