Monthly Archives: January 2015

Love, Luxury and Revolution: Paris in art and design

Posted on by Standard 1

 

Iona Farrell, a second year student in BA (hons) Fashion and Dress History, explored Paris on a recent study visit…

Tuileries Garden

View from the lake in the Tuileries Garden, looking towards the Place de la Concorde. Personal photograph by the author.

On the 4th to 8th of November this year, ten of us from the seminar group ‘A Trip to Paris’ visited the City of Lights. We were graced with beautiful blue skies and sunshine which was the perfect accompaniment to the elegant boulevards of Paris on this highly enjoyable visit.

Before the trip we split into three groups and each group was given a theme, either Love, Luxury or Revolution in Paris, with the task of planning a complete day in the city. Key readings were given to inspire our plans, from Walter Benjamin’s account of the historical passages of Paris to the student riots of the 1960’s. My group’s theme was Love and the book we based our day on was the fascinating novel The Hare with the Amber Eyes by the ceramicist Edmund de Waal. The book traces the provenance of an inherited collection of Japanese netsuke (small hand carved ivory figurines) back to a certain Charles Ephrussi, an art critic and collector in Belle Époque Paris.

Study in the Musée Nissim de Camondo.

Study in the Musée Nissim de Camondo. Built in 1911, with 18th century furniture and decoration. Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris. Personal photograph by the author.

Inspired by the book, we decided to base our day on different forms of love, starting from the love of collecting, as seen by Charles Ephrussi and also the sensual side of love seen through the sculptor Rodin’s evocative works. Our first visit was to Musée Nissim de Camondo, which houses a collection of 18th century French furniture and decorative arts collected by Moïse de Camondo. The house is located on the distinguished Rue de Monceau, the same street Charles Ephrussi had lived on. Charles and Moïse were both passionate collectors and stepping into the Nissim de Camondo felt more like a home than a museum. It was filled with the most opulent rooms including a room solely dedicated to displaying porcelain dinner sets and tea services!

Auguste Rodin. Monument to Victor Hugo. 1890. Bronze. (Musée Rodin, Paris. Personal photograph by the author.)

Auguste Rodin. Monument to Victor Hugo. 1890. Bronze. Musée Rodin, Paris. Personal photograph by the author.

From there we went to the Musée Rodin, in which sculptures were interspersed amongst the grounds. I really enjoyed how they were placed outside: you could come close to the sculptures and see the expressive way Rodin rendered figures. We ended the day in the Musée d’Orsay, the grand converted railway station, which houses an extensive collection of Impressionist works. It was amazing to walk through the museum and recognise so many paintings that we had looked at in our lectures.

View of the interior of the Panthéon, Paris.

View of the interior of the Panthéon, Paris. Built between 1757-1791. Personal photograph by the author.

The diverse themes meant that each day was a completely different experience. Days were not just spent wandering around museums but actively exploring the city and its many facades. The Revolution day was spent walking around the Sorbonne area in Paris, the ‘University’ district where the 1968 student riots had taken place. During the tour we came across the Panthéon and made an unplanned but extremely worthwhile visit, exploring the endless labyrinth of underground tombs that house France’s leading citizens. Afterwards we crossed over the Seine and visited the Centre Pompidou. Built in the aftermath of the Student Riots, it houses a permanent collection of Modern art as well as a public library and music centre. We all had differing opinions on the museum, its industrial design was a real anomaly amongst the uniformity of the boulevards. Although I think its unconventional appearance was suited to its interior, housing challenging and experimental Modern artworks.

View of the Galerie Vivienne , Paris.

View of the Galerie Vivienne , Paris. Built in 1823. Personal photograph by the author.

For the Luxury themed day we traversed through Paris from our hotel in Montmartre, in the North, down to the Seine and the beautiful Tuileries Garden. The route took us through the historic passages of Paris, beautiful arcades dating back to the 18th century, dedicated to the luxurious pastime of shopping. The most elegant passage was the Galerie Vivienne, with mosaic floors and a glass ceiling, it was filled with quirky boutiques and fashion stores. The French designer Jean Paul Gaultier also has his flagship store here, and we peeped through the window at his eclectic designs. From there we walked along the Seine to the Musée d’Art Moderne and visited the Sonia Delaunay exhibition, which was bursting with endless samples of her bold, colourful textiles, as well as her earlier portraits which I admired.

Visiting Paris really brought the History of Art and Design course to life. Walking through the arcades where fashionable 19th century Parisians had browsed boutiques, or strolling through the streets which had seen numerous Revolutions; the streets all seemed to have their own narrative and I can’t wait to return and discover even more.

A Geordie in Oxford: Recounting my first Conference

Posted on by Standard Respond

 

What happens at an academic conference? Current MA student Jenna Allsopp found out when she attended the Design History Society Conference 2014

In July of this year, I graduated from the University of Brighton with a BA (Hons) in Fashion and Dress History and I am now a History of Design and Material Culture MA student, also at Brighton. My BA dissertation, entitled, Negotiating Female Masculinity in the Early Twentieth Century: the Case of Vera ‘Jack’ Holme (1881-1969) won the Design History Society 2014 undergraduate essay prize.

The Design History Society (DHS) is an international organisation that promotes the study of global design histories, bringing together and supporting all those engaged in the subject. Each year the DHS awards one undergraduate and one postgraduate the annual essay prize. As winner of the undergraduate prize, I was awarded a bursary of £300, one year’s membership of the DHS, £100 worth of Oxford University Press publications, 5 Paperbacks in the Oxford History of Art series, one free place to the DHS conference and gala dinner, and a £200 travel bursary to enable my attendance. DHS conferences are often held overseas; last year’s was held in Ahmedabad, India, and next year’s in San Francisco, so I was thrilled that this year’s was held in Oxford meaning, with the help of the travel bursary, I was able to attend.

Along with Annebella Pollen, Nicola Ashmore, Megha Rajguru and Louise Purbrick from the University of Brighton, who were all presenting at the conference, we stayed in the temporarily-vacant University of Oxford student accommodation in Keble College. Breakfast was held every morning in the very grand, Hogwarts-esque dining hall where we were unnervingly watched, alongside numerous American tourists, by the patriarchal portraits of past college Masters.

Breakfast at Keble College

(clockwise from left) Megha, Annebella, Nicola, Louise and myself having breakfast at Keble College

In commemoration of the 1914/1944 anniversary, the theme of this year’s conference was Design for War and Peace, exploring the relationship between design, war, peace and protest, which, as conference organiser Claire O’Mahony highlights, usually falls outside the frameworks of design history. Graphic design, textiles and fashion, industrial and transport design, craft and exhibition design were all explored over the sixty-plus papers across three days.

Having never been to a conference before, it’s hard to describe what I expected as I really didn’t know. I knew I felt out of my depth, and lacked initial confidence in the thought of keeping up with the intellectual content of the papers then engaging in post-discussion with other attendees. Despite this, I was also very excited to have a glimpse into the world that I ultimately want to be involved in, and this gave me a great introduction. I found some of the academic jargon quite alien, such as ‘keynote speaker’ (an invited speaker rather than a proposed paper), and the concept of a ‘panel’ (small group of thematic papers) but luckily had Brighton staff close by to enlighten me.

Due to the short time-scale of the conference, and the volume of papers being given, it was impossible to attend all the papers of interest. As panels ran simultaneously, I had to make some tough decisions on which I thought sounded the most interesting so I usually opted for papers which aligned with my own academic interests in dress and textiles history.A stand-out paper I attended was presented by Jane Tynan of Central Saint Martins entitled, A Bad Fit: Race, Ethnicity and the Uniforms of Colonial Soldiers in the First World War. This paper examined WWI uniform designs to see whether clothing was used to signal racial difference between British and colonial soldiers, and also highlighted the ethnic division of labour. The impassioned subject matter of this paper sparked a heated debate during the following Q&A section, which was interesting to listen to opposing views and interpretations of the evidence and arguments presented.

The paper of keynote speaker Joanna Bourke, Professor of History at Birkbeck College, entitled Designed to Kill: The Social Life of Weapons in Twentieth Century Britain also stands out as it was an area I had never considered as ‘design’ before. Using the case studies of full and semi-metal jacketed bullets, Bourke investigated the design of weapons whose aim was to cause the most ‘debilitating wounds.’ Although the paper included some harrowing accounts, and shocking images, of ballistic wounds, it was nevertheless fascinating when discussed in the context of the bullet as designed and used object.

As mentioned previously, the University of Brighton was represented at the conference. Nicola Ashmore and Megha Rajguru displayed the protest banner created by Brighton artists and activists which depicts a re-making of Picasso’s Guernica. Annebella Pollen discussed the symbolic resistance embodied in the textiles, tents and totems of inter-war pacifist organisation the Kibbo Kift Kindred, and Louise Purbrick examined the political and protest handkerchiefs decorated by jailed prisoners during the 1970s Northern Ireland conflict.

On the first evening of the conference, the prize winners were announced at a drinks reception at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. All speakers and delegates were present and it was a great opportunity to meet academics and fellow students. As a shy person. the prize announcement was a good ice-breaker for me as it meant people then approached me to say congratulations. I met a PhD student who suggested I submit an abstract to speak at her student-focussed ‘research in progress’ conference next year, and I had the opportunity to discuss my dissertation with aprize judge who gave me great feedback and advice on continuing my studies in the area.

Annebella and myself post-prize-giving at the Ashmolean Museum

Annebella and myself post-prize-giving at the Ashmolean Museum

Research from my BA dissertation has been selected for inclusion in the Lesbian Lives Conference 2015, held at the University of Brighton, so attending the DHS conference has given me a lot more confidence to speak and network. It was an excellent opportunity to see how a conference is structured and how a wide-range of subjects, which I had never previously thought of in terms of design history, can be effectively discussed and linked under a general theme. It was a very enriching experience, and I now look forward to my next conference.