New Voices: May 2003
One-day conference
Loughborough University, May 2003
The inaugural New Voices student conference was hosted by Loughborough University on Saturday 24th May. The conference attracted many academics ranging from undergraduates to postgraduates, from students at Loughborough University to researchers from Dublin. This conference series has been set up to give students, undergraduate and postgraduate, a platform for presenting their research, in a public environment, which combines academic rigor with a supportive atmosphere.
The inaugural conference not only fulfilled these aims but pushed them further, presenting an exemplar of academic co-operation and intellectual engagement which broke through the narrow areas of specialisms, leading to discoveries of connections and relations throughout different areas of art historic research. The papers and the ensuing discussion and question sessions found interesting parallels between different papers. Throughout these sessions, the discussions repeatedly returned to the keynote speech of Dr. Marsha Meskimmon which stressed the importance of co-operation in the discipline of art history.
The following speakers and papers featured at the conference:
Helen Ruth Brown, Staffordshire University: The image of Christ: William Dyce’s All Saints’ fresco
Jane Eckett, Dublin: Art history’s wall flowers: The neglected history of an Irish flower painter
Hazel Frizell, Kingston University: Representations of selected issues and concerns of the Women’s Liberation Movement in British feminist art practice from 1970-78
Richard Blandford, Winchester School of Art: Using Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to analyse the region of Southern California and its depiction in art
Graeme Smart, Keele University: The revalorization of kitsch
Kim Tyler, Loughborough University, School of Art and Design: Art, just opening and closing doors?
Chrissie Bradstreet, Courtauld Institute: Aesthetics of cleanliness: Bathing in the art collection of Lord Leverhulme
Nina Lager Vestberg, Birkbeck College: Streetwise and sentimental: On flânerie, photography and ‘the decisive moment’
The discussions of these high-powered and well-presented papers were later followed up in the pub.
As is the nature of co-operation, the goodwill and dedication of a number of people made this conference a success. I would like to thank the department of LUSAD and its head Dr. Colin Rhodes. Dr. Marsha Meskimmon in particular helped us at every stage and gave an opening address that provided a red thread throughout the day. Special thanks to the catering staff who were excellent in helping us to organise the event and provided wonderful services throughout the day, and to the Loughborough University branch of Blackwell’s Bookshop, whose manager sacrificed her day off to provide us with a bookstall. Thanks also to Dr. John Sears, to the SMG and to Jason Shron for their help and support.
I would like to encourage every student interested to come to the next New Voices conference, which will be held in Cambridge.
Patricia Allmer
The inaugural conference not only fulfilled these aims but pushed them further, presenting an exemplar of academic co-operation and intellectual engagement which broke through the narrow areas of specialisms, leading to discoveries of connections and relations throughout different areas of art historic research. The papers and the ensuing discussion and question sessions found interesting parallels between different papers. Throughout these sessions, the discussions repeatedly returned to the keynote speech of Dr. Marsha Meskimmon which stressed the importance of co-operation in the discipline of art history.
The following speakers and papers featured at the conference:
Helen Ruth Brown, Staffordshire University: The image of Christ: William Dyce’s All Saints’ fresco
Jane Eckett, Dublin: Art history’s wall flowers: The neglected history of an Irish flower painter
Hazel Frizell, Kingston University: Representations of selected issues and concerns of the Women’s Liberation Movement in British feminist art practice from 1970-78
Richard Blandford, Winchester School of Art: Using Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to analyse the region of Southern California and its depiction in art
Graeme Smart, Keele University: The revalorization of kitsch
Kim Tyler, Loughborough University, School of Art and Design: Art, just opening and closing doors?
Chrissie Bradstreet, Courtauld Institute: Aesthetics of cleanliness: Bathing in the art collection of Lord Leverhulme
Nina Lager Vestberg, Birkbeck College: Streetwise and sentimental: On flânerie, photography and ‘the decisive moment’
The discussions of these high-powered and well-presented papers were later followed up in the pub.
As is the nature of co-operation, the goodwill and dedication of a number of people made this conference a success. I would like to thank the department of LUSAD and its head Dr. Colin Rhodes. Dr. Marsha Meskimmon in particular helped us at every stage and gave an opening address that provided a red thread throughout the day. Special thanks to the catering staff who were excellent in helping us to organise the event and provided wonderful services throughout the day, and to the Loughborough University branch of Blackwell’s Bookshop, whose manager sacrificed her day off to provide us with a bookstall. Thanks also to Dr. John Sears, to the SMG and to Jason Shron for their help and support.
I would like to encourage every student interested to come to the next New Voices conference, which will be held in Cambridge.
Patricia Allmer