Jennifer Higgie looks beyond the canvas and towards other-worldly realms in her lecture exploring the intersections of the spiritual and the Surreal
CLASS DESCRIPTION
This lecture will introduce some of the radical cultural and scientific shifts that took place in the US, Europe and the UK that resulted in groups of women who were interested in Spiritualism coming together to create art works. Questions to discuss: How did science impact on the early days of abstraction? How did Spiritualism, and in particular Theosophy, encourage artists to look beyond the confines of material reality in their work? How was the idea of female suffrage entwined with Spiritualism? Artists we will discuss will include Georgian Houghton, Anna Mary Howitt and Hilma af Klint.
Many of the techniques that 19th-century Spiritualist artists employed, such as automatism, were to become central to the Surrealists decades later. In the centenary of Andr Bretons First Manifesto of Surrealist Art, we will look at the innovations that were explored decades earlier by women whose contributions, until very recently, were omitted from canonical art history.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer and former editor and staff writer of frieze magazine who lives in London. Her recent books include The Other Side: A Story of Women, Art and the Spirit World (2023) and The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of women's self-portraits (2021). She was the guest curator of the 2023 exhibition Thin Skin at Monash University Art Museum in Melbourne and is the host of the National Gallery of Australia's new podcast, Artist's Artists.
INSTAGRAM: @jennifer_higgie
WEBSITE: https://www.jenniferhiggie.com/
UPCOMING SESSIONS WITH THE FEMINIST LECTURE PROGRAM
Monday 16th September
Kitty Underhill (she/her)
Where do Flaws Come From?: Bellies, Bodies and the Social Construction of
Imperfection
Monday 23rd September
N.A. Kimber (she/her) and K.E. Donoghue-Stanford (she/her)
Death and the Maiden: Femininity in the Gothic
Monday 30th September
Carolina Hades (she/her)
Pole Dancing Against the Algorithm
Monday 7th October
Janine Francois (she/they)
Black {Gendered} Space Time: From the Heavens to Outer Space
Monday 14th October
Parumveer Walia (he/him)
Staged Bodies: Performativity in Feminist Photography
Monday 21st October
Isobel Atacus (she/they)
Eva Hesse: Imagining the Unruly
Monday 28th October
Gudrun Filipska (she/her)
Feminism and Zombie Culture
Monday 4th November
Anna Titov (she/her)
Cyborgs, Transcorporeality and Volatile Bodies: Ecofeminist Theories of Embodiment
Monday 11th November
Jennifer Higgie (she/her)
Stars in Their Eyes: 19th-Century Spiritualism and Female Proto-Surrealism
Monday 18th November
Melissa Baksh (she/her)
Whitewashed? Whiteness and Femininity in Art History
Monday 25th November
Dr. Noam Yadin Evron (she/her)
Hildegard of Bingen: Mystic, Artist, Composer, Pioneer
Monday 2nd December
COMING SOON
Monday 9th December
Baylee Woodley (they/them)
Medieval Femmes: Queer Femininities in Medieval England
Monday 16th December
Summer Lee (she/her)
The Incendiary History of Red Lingerie
RECORDING
A recording of the lecture will be sent out by The Feminist Lecture Program after the event finishes, within 2 hours of the end of the class. This email will also contain any resources/reading list the lecturer shares.
Please add [email protected] to your email contacts to ensure you receive the recording as expected.
Please note that the recording will expire 7 days after sending.
PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Everyone is welcome to join this Pay-What-You-Can class. We suggest a donation of 20, however, we understand that may not be possible for everybody. Please be honest and pay what you can afford so that we can continue to offer our sessions on a donation basis.
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