CfP: Representing the Medical Body (28 March 2019)

A one-day workshop at the Science Museum, London, organised by Katy Barrett (Curator of Art Collections) and Sarah Wade (Research Manager), on March 28, 2019.

In 2019, a series of five landmark new medicine galleries will open at the Science Museum in London. A series of contemporary art commissions form a significant part of this project along with images of the human body throughout the history of art. This provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on the unique ways in which the body has been represented in relation to health and medicine through the history of art and visual culture.

This one-day interdisciplinary workshop will bring together artists, scientists and historians of art, science and medicine to explore artistic responses to medicine and representations of the medical body throughout history. Papers are invited from a range of critical frameworks including, feminist, queer, postcolonialist, posthuman and gender studies. Contributions can take a variety of forms including papers, artist’s talks, films and performances. The day will end with a response from Professor Ludmilla Jordanova, Department of History, Durham University.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers. Topics might include:

• Medical models and anatomy
• Death and dying
• Medical portraiture
• Representations of disability, disease and healing
• Photography and ethnography or anthropology
• Contemporary or historical medical imaging
• The role of imagery in diagnosis

Please send a 250-word abstract and a short bio of no more than a paragraph to sarah.wade@sciencemuseum.ac.uk by the end of Sunday 20^th January 2019.