Virtual Events Broadened Academic Horizons in 2020 & 21

Art History faculty and students expanded the boundaries of the classroom this year by arranging online workshops, lectures, research, exhibitions, film festivals, and webinars over Zoom. We’re taking a look back at the many virtual events our community hosted, which not only helped to alleviate the isolation of the pandemic but also introduced new possibilities for future collaborations unlimited by location.

In addition to our very successful first-ever remote Art History Graduate Symposium, we hosted the following events:

		Indigenous Film Screening and Discussion with Filmmakers – MoFA and MCHS hosted this weeklong screening of three Indigenous short films and a discussion with Dr. Kristin Dowell and two of the filmmakers this month.
		MCHS Workshop: Caring for Object Collections – In this two-hour webinar in March, preservation specialist Stephanie Garafolo discussed the basics of caring for vulnerable art objects, proper storage and handling, and environmental standards for various materials.
		Artist Lecture: Allan deSouza – In a March guest lecture introduced and moderated by Dr. Tenley Bick, Allan deSouza discussed their artistic strategies of quoting and rewriting (art) history; how these speak to issues of representation, equity, and justice; and how such strategies create additional labor for those already doing the work of historicizing art.
		Scholar Lecture: Ali Asgar Alibhai – Alibhai joined Dr. Erika Loic’s undergraduate seminar, the Art of the Medieval Body, to discuss eunuchs in the medieval Islamicate world through the lens of disability.
		Artist Lecture: Wendy Red Star – The MCHS program and MoFA hosted this March remote lecture featuring Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star  in conversation with curator Dr. Jordan Amirkhani.
		Museum Strategies for Digital Engagement, Featuring Laurel Allen – Allen, a museum professional with the California Academy of Sciences, presented the February talk “More Than Words: Strategies for Meaningful Digital Engagement—and the Challenges of Actually Getting It Done in a Museum Environment.”
		Artist Lecture: Hank Willis Thomas – MoFA and the MCHS program hosted this February discussion with renowned conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, whose sculptures, videos, and installations confront histories of inequality and injustice through common visual language.
		Collaborative Research Project on Ethiopian Art – Students in Dr. Lynn Jones‘s East of Byzantium seminar researched Ethiopian objects in collaboration with Kenyon College scholars in preparation for a special issue of the online open-access medieval art journal Peregrinations.
		Interview: Artist Mel Bochner – Dr. Tenley Bick conducted an online conversation with artist Mel Bochner in January, in association with the exhibition Bochner Boetti Fontana at Magazzino Italian Art, where Dr. Bick was Scholar-in-Residence during the 2019–20 academic year.
		Museum Object Class Exhibition How To Resist Expectations: Instruction-Based Art in Practice – The fall 2020 undergraduate Museum Object class, under the direction of Meredith Lynn and Dr. Tenley Bick, curated this impressive online exhibition, researching and executing instructions-based works by artists who used their practices as a platform for resistance. The exhibition remains open through 2021.
		Cinehassee Iberoamerican Film Festival – MCHS co-sponsored two films for the Cinehassee Iberoamerican Film Festival, hosted by the Hispanic Graduate Student Association, and Drs. Kristin Dowell and Erika Loic hosted a Q&A discussion with Mehdin Tewolde Serrano, the filmmaker of Negra.
		Artist Lecture: Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham – In the fall, museum professional Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham presented “Lessons in Equity from Culturally Specific Museums.” Johnson-Cunningham is the co-founder and creative director of Museum Hue; a United Nations Human Rights fellow; and recipient of the Americans for the Arts 2019 American Express Emerging Leader Award.
		Global Indigenous Film Showcase – Graduate students in Dr. Kristin Dowell’s film class organized this film festival in the fall of 2020. Six films were screened online, featuring filmmakers of different Indigenous backgrounds and experiences from around the world, followed by a live online Q&A with Billy Luther, director of Miss Navajo (Diné, 2007).
		Artist Lecture: Mark Doox – In October Dr. Lynn Jones introduced Mark Doox, a writer and narrative based visual artist who mixed media acrylic collage paintings uses aspects of Byzantine and early Italo-religious icons as the basis of his “icon” styled artwork that he calls Byz-Dada (Byzantine Dadaism.)
		Scholar Lecture: Surekha Davis – Davis joined Dr. Stephanie Leitch’s European Encounters graduate seminar to speak about her new book project Collecting Artifacts in the Age of Empire: Spaces of Disruption and her recent Aeon article, Here Be Black Holes.
		COSTELLAZIONE Digital Series on Contemporary Italian Art and Activism – Dr. Tenley Bick hosted this 2020–21 bilingual digital project dedicated to mapping new directions in contemporary Italian art, in a series of online interviews with artists Jem Perucchini, Marinella Senatore, Fare Ala, Alessandra Ferrini, Mr. Cens, Alfredo Jaar, and more. Video recordings are available on the site.
		Intoductory Conservation Workshop – In September, the MCHS program hosted the workshop Introduction to Preservation Management and Collections Car, led by Stefanie Garafolo, preservation specialist with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC).
		Museum Object Class Exhibition Off Kilter: An Exploration of Contemporary Form – Undergraduates in the spring 2020 Museum Object class, under the direction of Dr. Kyle Killian, quickly shifted their plans and moved this exhibition originally intended for the WJB Gallery to an online installation. “Off-Kilter” explored contemporary art within the framework of form and texture, focusing on objects from the FSU Museum of Fine Arts permanent collection.