This edited collection explores a subject of great potential for both art historians and museologists - that of the nature of the specimen and how it might be reinterpreted. Through its cross-disciplinary contributions, written by a team of art historians, artists, poets, anthropologists, critics and curators, this book looks at how artistic encounters in museums, ranging from anatomy museums to contemporary cabinets of curiosity, can provoke new modes of thinking about art, science and curating. Museological literature in the past focused on artefacts or objects; this is an original contribution to the field and offers new readings of old issues, inspiring new understandings of the relationships between art, science and curating. Brings together international expertise from art practitioners, historians, creative writers and theorists in France, the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Contributions from creative practitioners draw upon their own experience of producing artworks in response to specific scientific collections while historians, anthropologists, critics and writers examine how museums stimulate, incite and otherwise inspire artistic awareness of science and its specimens. One of the most important contributions this book will make is drawing together several threads of research and practice to encourage interdisciplinary discussion. It provides new ways of thinking about the relationships between art, science, museums and their objects. It concentrates on the ways in which scientific collections kindle novel aesthetic strategies and inspire new scholarly interpretations of art, science, curating and epistemology. In so doing it will make a considerable contribution to the fields of art writing, creative practice, art theory, the history of science and curating. This book will appeal to academics, researchers, undergraduates and postgraduates studying fine art, curating, museology, art history, the history of science, creative writing; visual artists, curators, and other creative practitioners. Also of interest to museum audiences. Reading list potential.

One of the most international, culturally diverse cities in the world, London's social and cultural history is steeped in centuries of migration. This book places migrants at the centre of London's story, discussing, exploring and celebrating the contribution that they have made to the city from the medieval period to the present day. Structured geographically around five sections, each of which addresses a different area of London (North, East, Central, South and West) this book features essays from a wide range of contributors, some of which examine how migrants have shaped particular places (socially, architecturally, politically), and some of which analyse how they have been imagined and represented within those places and the city more widely. The inclusion of image-led case studies exploring particular buildings, monuments, artists or institutions offers local examples of how migrant communities have made their marks on London in different ways. Using a mixture of in-depth analysis of texts and cultural artifacts with more synoptic, historical essays, the book builds an overview of the contribution of migrant communities to the history and cultures of London. Taken together, these essays paints a rich, complex picture of cultural London, featuring well-known figures like Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Van Gogh in addition to lesser-known figures like Ignatius Sancho, a former slave and writer, and contemporary novelist Hanan al-Shaykh. Topics addressed are rich and varied, from an examination of Chinese aesthetics of an artefact at the British museum, to an exploration of representations of black sex workers in 18th C London. Published amidst the fraught politics of Brexit, the revival of nationalist sentiments in the global north, and the Covid-19 pandemic, this book serves as an accessible and timely reminder of the enormous cultural contributions that migrants have made to Britain’s capital.

Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics is an accessible guide for the student approaching Museum and Gallery Studies for the first time. Taking a global view, it covers the key ideas, approaches and contentious issues in the field. Balancing theory and practice, the book address important questions such as: What are museums and galleries? Who decides which kinds of objects are worthy of collection? How are museums and galleries funded? What ethical concerns do practitioners need to consider? How is the field of Museum and Gallery Studies developing? This user-friendly text is an essential read for anyone wishing to work within museums and galleries, or seeking to understand academic debates in the field.

Vagrants were everywhere in Victorian culture. They wandered through novels and newspapers, photographs, poems and periodicals, oil paintings and illustrations. They appeared in a variety of forms in a variety of places: Gypsies and hawkers tramped the country, casual paupers and loafers lingered in the city, and vagabonds and beachcombers roved the colonial frontiers. Uncovering the rich Victorian taxonomy of nineteenth-century vagrancy for the first time, this interdisciplinary study examines how assumptions about class, gender, race and environment shaped a series of distinct vagrant types. At the same time it broaches new ground by demonstrating that rural and urban conceptions of vagrancy were repurposed in colonial contexts. Representational strategies circulated globally as well as locally, and were used to articulate shifting fantasies and anxieties about mobility, poverty and homelessness. These are traced through an extensive corpus of canonical, ephemeral and popular texts as well as a variety of visual forms.

Vagrants were everywhere in Victorian culture. They wandered through novels and newspapers, photographs, poems and periodicals, oil paintings and illustrations. They appeared in a variety of forms in a variety of places: Gypsies and hawkers tramped the country, casual paupers and loafers lingered in the city, and vagabonds and beachcombers roved the colonial frontiers. Uncovering the rich Victorian taxonomy of nineteenth-century vagrancy for the first time, this interdisciplinary study examines how assumptions about class, gender, race and environment shaped a series of distinct vagrant types. At the same time it broaches new ground by demonstrating that rural and urban conceptions of vagrancy were repurposed in colonial contexts. Representational strategies circulated globally as well as locally, and were used to articulate shifting fantasies and anxieties about mobility, poverty and homelessness. These are traced through an extensive corpus of canonical, ephemeral and popular texts as well as a variety of visual forms.

The Sunderland Empire is one of the grand old provincial theatres. This collection of more than 150 archive photographs is a comprehensive history of the building. It charts the evolution of the Empire from the days of Victorian music hall to the Girl who Loves a Soldier', to the jazz age, the revues of the post-war era and the plays and concerts.

One of the most international, culturally diverse cities in the world, London's social and cultural history is steeped in centuries of migration. This book places migrants at the centre of London's story, discussing, exploring and celebrating the contribution that they have made to the city from the medieval period to the present day. Structured geographically around five sections, each of which addresses a different area of London (North, East, Central, South and West) this book features essays from a wide range of contributors, some of which examine how migrants have shaped particular places (socially, architecturally, politically), and some of which analyse how they have been imagined and represented within those places and the city more widely. The inclusion of image-led case studies exploring particular buildings, monuments, artists or institutions offers local examples of how migrant communities have made their marks on London in different ways. Using a mixture of in-depth analysis of texts and cultural artifacts with more synoptic, historical essays, the book builds an overview of the contribution of migrant communities to the history and cultures of London. Taken together, these essays paints a rich, complex picture of cultural London, featuring well-known figures like Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Van Gogh in addition to lesser-known figures like Ignatius Sancho, a former slave and writer, and contemporary novelist Hanan al-Shaykh. Topics addressed are rich and varied, from an examination of Chinese aesthetics of an artefact at the British museum, to an exploration of representations of black sex workers in 18th C London. Published amidst the fraught politics of Brexit, the revival of nationalist sentiments in the global north, and the Covid-19 pandemic, this book serves as an accessible and timely reminder of the enormous cultural contributions that migrants have made to Britain’s capital.

John Peter Askew’s pictures show us the poetry of the everyday. Three years in the editing, WE II is a companion volume to WE which Charlotte Cotton described as “A wonderful book... a beautiful, close, incredibly touching and vast photographic story…” While WE II is an epic portrait across generations of a single family from the easternmost point in Europe, these photographs transcend their particular circumstances. Askew pays attention to our 'best selves', asking us to imagine the possibility of a better, more playful world, and pointing towards who we might yet become. This work, stretching back over a quarter of a century, is a timely and idiosyncratic chronicle, embracing friendship, communality, and kindness.

John Peter Askew (*1960, UK) is an artist who works with the camera to create dense, poetic images of domestic life, and of the historical forces that shape who we are. Since 1996 he has photographed the Russian city of Perm, the easternmost city in Europe, as part of a project investigating the state of modern Europe. While We is an extended epic portrait across generations of a single family, the Chulakovs, these photographs transcend their particular circumstances. Askew pays attention to our 'best selves', asking us to imagine the possibility of a better, more playful world, and pointing towards who we might yet become.

With Macromancy, the British photographer Mark Pinder (*1966) presents a photographic essay on the state of the nation that spans three and a half decades. In it, he examines the social, political, and economic changes that Great Britain (and the North East of England in particular) experienced in the years when traditional industries such as coal mining, engineering, and shipbuilding were declining, as well as the social and political tensions that resulted from this, which have led to the situation in which Great Britain finds itself today.