Fifth Biennial Graduate Student Art History Symposium: Making Contact: Haptic, Temporal, Spatial, and Conceptual Connections

The Washington University in St. Louis Department of Art History and Archaeology will host its fifth biennial Graduate Student Art History Symposium (GSAHS) titled Making Contact: Haptic, Temporal, Spatial, and Conceptual Connections on February 23rd and 24th. The event will be held entirely in person on the Danforth Campus of Washington University and includes a keynote by Dr. Elena FitzPatrick Sifford, panels of graduate student speakers, an accompanying art project, and museum and exhibition visits.

This year’s symposium considers the role of contact in its many forms as a constitutive component of art, culture, art history, archaeology, and museum studies. Much of the work of artists, art historians, and archaeologists, rely on the ability to make contact with museums and exhibitions, architectural and archaeological sites, archives and libraries, fellow artists and scholars, and objects of inquiry. As we emerge from a period of reduced and restricted engagement with the methods and objects of research, the impact of contact on the production, circulation, and reception of art and artifacts is perhaps more present than ever. This symposium examines the implications of contact, broadly conceived, allowing for the exploration of haptic, temporal, spatial, and conceptual forms of connection and exchange.

 More information is available on the symposium website.