For hundreds of years, artists and physicians have influenced each other’s work; through collaborations, partnerships and ad-hoc junctures, they have expanded the scope of each other’s fields. This session seeks to examine such intersections by exploring artistic practice in, and with, medical spaces, including the physician’s office, the waiting room, the operating theatre, the hospital ward, the autopsy room, the laboratory and the medical museum. By investigating these sites from the perspectives of art history and visual culture, we hope to shed new light on how and why artists have used these spaces not only for anatomical and pathological study but also for ideas and inspiration – many of which have pushed disciplinary boundaries. What role did medical spaces have on artistic practice, visual representation and the writing of art and medical histories? What role do they continue to play in art-making and medical learning?

This session intends to spark a dialogue about artistry in the spaces of medicine. We encourage papers that look at this dialogue in any country from the 17th century to the present and welcome papers from artists, curators and scholars from any discipline. We are especially interested in approaches that expand the field of art history through an analysis of medical visual culture, as well as papers that explore how artists expanded the field through their ‘medical’ work, which can be understood as artworks with medical themes or any type of image, object or technology made for medicine.

To offer a paper, please email your paper proposals direct to the session convenors:
Natasha Ruiz-Gómez, University of Essex [email protected]
Mary Hunter, McGill University [email protected]

Provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 25-minute paper (unless otherwise specified), your name and institutional affiliation (if any).

Deadline for submissions: Monday 5 November 2018