History of Arts and Architecture

How might we reorient the practice of architecture to foreground reciprocity, multiplicity, and connection? What kind of future do we want to envision and build toward? And how might we privilege ways of thinking, making, and being other than the dominant forms of colonial practice so entrenched in our discipline?

Building Smooth: Conic Tectonics in Cary Downtown Park

“Curving architectural geometries are alluring for many great reasons – they mimic and blur boundaries with landscapes, they break the expected visual patterns of our everyday built environment, and they represent an inspiring technical wonder. But how do they get built? And more importantly, can they be built efficiently, using standard construction materials, assemblies, and processes?

INVENTING ABSTRACTION, CA. 950

Recasting Carpeaux’s Why Born Enslaved!: Sculpture and Slavery in the Second Empire

This two-part event includes a reproductive justice exhibit featuring art that focuses on crisis pregnancy centers, as well as a talk about art as a vehicle for social justice by Dr. Virginia Thomas.

Exhibit Opening
12:30-1:30 pm, Tuesday, Sept. 27
Axinn Winter Garden & Axinn Center, Room 229
Exhibit features art by Middlebury’s Public Feminism Fellows: Kamari Williams, Isabel Perez, Alexis Welch, Elissa Asch, Luci Bryson, Emily Ribeiro, and Meg Farley.

A selection of senior thesis architectural design work by students in the Class of 2015. Sponsored by the Art & Architecture. Exhibition on view through September 30.

Please join Andrea Murray’s Architecture and the Environment class for a screening of the documentary ‘One Big Home’ in the Johnson Memorial Building room 304.

The Mahabharata, one of India’s most ancient texts, describes a war between family members embroiled in a succession dispute. At its heart is a conversation about the ethics of war between the warrior Arjuna, who is conflicted about fighting his own kin, and his charioteer and confidant Krishna, a manifestation of the god Vishnu.

Jessica Levin Martinez, director of the Division of Academic and Public Programs at the Harvard Art Museums, discusses new spaces and strategies for teaching and learning at the museums, which reopened in the fall of 2014 after a major renovation and expansion. She also addresses public programs that encourage collaboration with campus and community partners. Sponsored by the Middlebury College Museum of Art, Museum Studies Enrichment Fund, Education Studies, and the Art History program. Free

Kendo, “The Way of the Sword,” is the art of Japanese fencing. Kendo is one of the oldest and most celebrated of the Japanese martial arts and is held in high regard in Japan as an important cultural legacy. Kendo has transcended its bloody origins in Japan’s feudal past to become a modern martial discipline that instills courtesy, humility, self-control, and fighting spirit through mentally intense and physically rigorous training. This demonstration is conducted by members of Boston Kendo Kyokai and Boston Shufukai. Sponsored by the Department of History of Art and Architecture. Free