A conference organised by the Warburg Institute and Royal Museums Greenwich
What meaning does the figure of the shipwreck hold for art history, archaeology and related disciplines? Are the vessels lost at sea merely shattered cabinets of forgotten wonders that are now resurfacing? Or does the interest in them which art historians and archaeologists share with maritime historians, literary scholars and artists hold the potential to recalibrate an understanding of the knowledge produced in confrontation with material objects of both past and diverse aesthetics? And how do questions such as these resonate in times in which the dangers of the voyage by sea are very real and not metaphorical at all for hundreds of thousands who try to cross the bodies of water separating the Global South from the Global North?
This interdisciplinary two-day conference, held on 11 and 12 November 2022 in London at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich and the Warburg Institute, sets out to discuss these questions by assessing material histories of the shipwreck as well as the shipwreck within a history of ideas; a particular emphasis lies on the politics around the shipwreck, and, last but not least, its reception, discussion and representation in art, both historic and present.
Organisers: Dr Caspar Pearson (The Warburg Institute), Dr Johannes von Müller (Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel), Andrew Choong Han Lin and Dr Imogen Tedbury (The Royal Museums Greenwich)