 So good afternoon everybody. You are at the presentation of the source postgraduate open day. And for the history of art and archaeology section of the School of Arts. So welcome to everybody. I'm Anna Contadini. I'm one of the teachers in the department and also MA Convino. Together with me is Dr. Christian Lucanis who is also the MA Convino and we will share this presentation. We also have Rachel from Source Marketing Department. If you have any problems or any questions with the technology she's there to help us. Also I need to say to you that the session is recorded. I hope this is okay for you. We are recording it for those students who may not be able to join us now and they can go back to the recording later on when they can. I hope that you will have questions and you can either put your questions in the chat or your points or preferably you come to the microphone. You can unmute yourself and come to the microphone. We can have the questions at the end but if you have urgent questions that are specific to the point we are making you know feel free to interrupt us put your hands up and then we will take the question. Great. So I do hope that you come to Source and to the history of art and archaeology department to gain an in-depth knowledge of the arts of a particular region culture of more than one particular region cultures because you can actually choose modules that are not just on East Asia for example or in the Middle East or in Africa but you can have wider choices as well. This is one of its the main aim of our MA degrees. The second one I give you three main ones so one is to gain an in-depth knowledge of the arts of a particular region and culture. The second one which is very important is to develop critical thinking and if we don't develop critical thinking in Source in the School of Oriental and Africa studies where the studies concentrate on Asia and Africa then you know we are not doing a very good job so we have been in fact developed not only degrees but also modules and mode of delivery our material in a way that is always encouraging students to develop critical thinking. The third point which is very important is to contribute to the discourse on the coloniality and the coloniality of course is very important for the regions we are studying Asia and Africa and it has been at the center of much recent scholarship and it is one of the central aims of Source which is one of the few universities in the UK that to make a former commitment to a decolonizing agenda and if you go to the website the Source website and type the colonizing source for example you will be able to see the material that has been posted there and have a read. Right so these are the three main points Christian can you go can you change the slide? Right before we go into the details of these MA degrees I wanted to ask you and if you can come to the to the microphone it would be great I wanted to ask you you know what what is your interest if you were going to create an art collection an exhibition what would you collect what would you put together and why? Come on don't be shy come to the to the microphone so that's an opportunity also for us to know what your interests are anybody? I would say I would collect some kind of very old paintings ancient paintings with these paintings and stuff. Right so you're interested in did you say Buddhist? Yes yeah so you're interested in Buddhist art well you're very lucky because Christian is here and he is the expert on Buddhist art in our department. I realize I've been following his work and I'm a big fan I'm a big follower of his work. Wow Christian you have a fan. I'm really glad to be in the meeting with him today thank you. Oh that's that's very nice very kind. That's very kind to hear yes very nice. Great anybody else and no nobody yes yes hello yes hello sorry I can't see your name can you say your name I can't see who is speaking at the moment. Kunj we can hear you. Kunj we can hear you just speak. Yes Kunj we can't hear you at the moment are you still there now you're you're muted while we're waiting waiting for Kunj anybody else wants to come in and tell us what they are interested in hello. Hello this is Kunj. Hi now we can hear you yes please go ahead. I'm Kunj I'm from Pakistan and I've generally been very interested in like drawing analyses between different eras like it today and the past so if I find certain objects or any art that kind of well depicts certain cultured practices I'd be very interested in collecting goals and studying them. Right okay so you're interested both in the past especially Pakistani art? Not really South Asia maybe the partition era and a little bit of nationalism about nationalism in the subcontinent etc. Right well that's very interesting we have apart from Christian we also have another colleague Crispin Bramfoot who is a South Asian specialist and he actually we have. Can you hear me? Yeah I can hear you sorry I thought you had. I'm sorry can you hear me? Yes we can can you hear me? Something wrong with that. Yeah okay I can hear you now. Yeah so I was saying that that with Christian and Crispin Dr. Crispin Bramfoot our South Asianist you would be you know you would be able to take modules that cover those interests so yeah yeah yeah so that that would be great okay anybody else? Sorry can I add one thing? Basically I'm also interested in artifacts and like how objects tell stories so my very own thesis in the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture here was about this whole museum that's going to represent today's generation so it's partly because I want to have enough knowledge and you know of this history and archaeology of this whole discipline so I can continue my art project. Well that's very interesting because we do provide with the history of art and the theories of art which obviously provide the basis for anything then that you want to develop later and if you're interested in museums and museology we have courses and in fact we have a brand new MA degree which is called Curating Cultures so we are very interested in many of us teach object studies how to interpret objects so yes we basically would cover everything that you are interested in. Interesting thank you. Good anybody else wants to share their interest? Right well if not that was a good introduction from the two of you thank you very much so what I'm going to what we're going to do I will go through the MA programs why studying history of art and archaeology so as our research culture careers and then questions as I said you can have questions at the end but you can also interrupt us as we go along Christian can you yes oh so can you go to the next one please well okay so this is a recent photos of the department or we are not all present but the majority of us is there so we're all nicely photographs here this is a recent one so the department comprises experts which provide really the broadest range of expertise in non-western art found anywhere in the world actually from Japan to Morocco and everything else in between so we have africanists, estesianists, near-middle eastern experts, South Asianists, Southeast Asianists we don't just do non-western art as a token addition to a mainstream art course like other universities who concentrate on European or western art do you know the majority of university have a department of art history which is almost 90% concerned with the arts of European or western arts and then they may have one person who deals with Chinese art or one person who deals with Indian art a little bit as a tokenism but we differ because we are concentrated on Asian and African art of course when we talk about the theories and when we talk about the connections between artistic traditions we also talk about European and western art so we do use theories that were developed in Europe but we through it the colonizing lens and we do have interests for example one of my interests is the connections between Middle Eastern art and culture and European art and culture in particular Italian so that's that's what what we do so can we go forward Christian okay so these are the MA programs we have so we have a main one which is MA history of art and or archaeology then we have the MA curating culture that I mentioned before it's a new MA and it's concentrated on curation and museum and museology with practical elements as well towards career patterns we have an MA we have two interesting MA's one is MA history of art and archaeology of East Asia with a sort of brother MA which is MA history of art and archaeology of East Asia with intensive language and the intensive languages so that is an MA over two years and intensive language the languages that you can choose to study together with the art history program is Japanese or Korean we then have the MA history of art and architecture of the Islamic Middle East and MA history of art and architecture of the Islamic Middle East with intensive language and here the languages are Arabic or Persian or Turkish and these are very special degrees we are very proud to have them they are over two years as I said they're quite intensive and then of course there is the dissertation which is part of the MA programs and it stands as a piece alone in which you are able to develop a research more in depth sorry I have something in the chat from Natifa it's nice to meet you all I just had a question around different forms of art I'm interested in the colonial artistic practices more specifically embodied practices practices concerned with the body I was just wondering if there are any interests that focus on bodily forms of art and perhaps tracing the history of the embodied practice your body has archival well we do have a colleague who teaches precisely that within a Middle Eastern context and Christian if you can can you scroll down it's it's it's a pity that I can't do that can you go down down here so if you look at near Middle East here one of the of our colleagues is very interested in architectural boundaries and the body and how the body connects interferes changes the the architecture the urbanism of of the city and how this is received by the bodies and what what the bodies can contribute in in in return so I'm not totally sure that this answers all the points you're making but certainly we are also interested in that and we provide with that that module okay Christian can you go back please yeah okay so so having sort of explained what the MAs are the the question is why should you study history of art and archaeology and so us and you know I've already answered partially that that question and the question the the the answer is that we are the specialized university with MA programs that span a very wide range of of geographical areas and cultures you can study Chinese porcelain on Tuesday and modern contemporary arts in Africa on Thursday so so you know that's that's our peculiarity Christian can you go down yeah I think now with the following slides I can go through the type of modules that we offer for each geographical and cultural regions so for example for Africa we can offer modern and contemporary arts in Africa Asian Africa on display which is connected to museum and museology and photography and the image in Africa then going down to East Asia we have a strong East Asian cohort in the in history of archaeology of the school of arts so our modules span from China and the Silk Road the visual arts of dynastic China China modern and contemporary ceramics in Chinese culture Chinese porcelain trade and transfer which is one of the modules that actually cross over spaces and cultures Korean art both ancient and contemporary and Japanese art of the Edo period and shogunal iconography in the Edo period then we also have Christian if you can go down so near Middle East we've already seen this we have three specialists in in Middle Eastern art and architecture and we offer modules that go from Arab painting meaning the illustrated manuscript culture of the Arab world to architectural boundaries in the body to the connections artistic and cultural connections between Islamic art and European art more specifically Islamic art and architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean and the relationship with the crusades and the the period of the crusades and Islamic visual culture and of course you know our modules I should say we not only have you know a discussion of the material but we have a discussion of the theories so and our theories are object studies how to interpret objects you will find yourself facing with the iconography and formalism with museum and museology orientalism gender modernity and post-modernity decolonizing art history can we go down Christian yes and then South Asia we have already spoken a little bit arts of the Tamil temple the Indian temple Tibetan Buddhist monuments in context interpret the visual expression of the mandala and Gandharan art and its heritage and Christian can answer questions especially on this program here then we have also a strong series of modules for Southeast Asia from Hindu arts and Buddhist and Hindu arts aesthetics and politics of sexual difference and gender issues in Southeast Asian art issues of contemporary Southeast Asian art more particular these monuments and sculptures of Van Gogh and more general the figure of the Buddha theory and practice and Southeast Asia's art histories which also include Islamic art histories so Islamic art in Southeast Asia um the next one Christian I think I I'll I'll now if are there any questions at this point otherwise I'll ask Christian to come in and he can continue with the presentation but if you have any questions or any points let me see the chat yeah yeah anybody have questions at this point so essentially I think what needs to be mentioned here is that some of not all of the modules listed are available in every year yeah uh that is also true for the website uh but there is the majority of them are but if you're coming for one specific module you would have to confirm that beforehand that sometimes is difficult but beyond the kind of more regionally oriented modules we have the the overarching theory and transregional modules curating cultures is besides an MA program also a course a very popular one as it turns out and uh uh yeah it and covers essentially abroad in the entire regions and displays of objects from the entire regions that we cover then there will be a new course on loot collecting and restitution these are of course very a kind of popular current topics that are discussed especially in relation to uh decolonizing as well and so so important kind of research area in art history today then there is theory and method in art history that gives you a kind of better grounding in the different theories uh contemporary art and the global sets or discusses contemporary art in its global connections and then you have uh curating the sacred uh buddhism and hinduism on display is another new course uh to be offered from next year onwards and so they are besides the more general curating cultures there are specific curatorial courses as well that will be on offer next year uh that allow kind of more specialization in those areas then of course you may wonder how we teach especially in pandemic times and so so that's why the bracket says in normal times we actually teach a blend of in-person lectures seminars and then museum visits group activities sometimes field trips and in certain courses even object handling sessions but obviously the pandemic taught us all online delivery and it's it's foreseeable that for certain parts of our teaching online delivery will remain especially when it's lectures for larger groups but it will be a relatively small percentage of the the university experience that you will be having and for online delivery as for this presentation we either use Zoom or Microsoft Teams some may also use other tools and our kind of online delivery or our delivery in whatever form is also accompanied by a virtual learning environment called Moodle or BLE Bloomsbury learning environment that where you can access the you know the course schedule reading materials and so on which we all feed into and so those those would be the standard forms and and in each MA of course you do four modules per term so two times and then the the third term and the summer are dedicated to the dissertation so the MA is very short yeah it's only one year but it is the full year there is no gap in summer in summer you're busy finalizing your dissertation and I think it's a very intense year because also for modules that are in parallel with all the assignments and readings and so on keep here as a student busy at source but also I hope engaged and interested so what is our research culture like I'll put in here a picture that shows Louis Dithercott and myself just in moving a museum in Ladakh and so I have three keywords here on the slide interdisciplinary global and hands-on is quite well represented through that image and especially also the hands-on part and so more broadly of course each of us does research in different areas in here I just present to one is the project I do together with Louis Dithercott Tibetan monastery collections today is essentially a project that goes to Tibetan areas in Nepal and India and records monastery collections but then also addresses questions of you know the preservation of the object the cataloging the display of the objects and so on and we actually kind of built or designed and then designed a museum in one of the monasteries in a room that they already had built and it was essentially then built according to our plans and opened in 2019 just before the pandemic and so that would be things or that that is one project and the picture itself shows Louis essentially interviewing locals in Mustang in kind of lower Mustang about if a monastery should build a museum or not then what should be displayed there and so on to also kind of gather the local opinions as well and so that's part of the research and then another one that is for example in China on the trail of the last emperor it's something that our head of department presues and kind of involves the forbidden city in Beijing and so on and so I think it's just shows the range but in principle everybody of us has its own kind of research speciality and projects ongoing projects that we follow and the research from those projects can as well as far as we can rebuild the research from those projects into our teaching yeah it's sometimes more sometimes less depending I can say from my own experience that it's not always possible but it's definitely something that we attempt to do now the history of art and archaeology is of course part of the school of arts so it's it's placed in this wider setting where we have also colleagues from music and the center for creative cultural for creative industries media and film studies and so it is a dynamic multidisciplinary school that and we partially teach especially overarching courses where may be taught by colleagues from these other departments or with these other with colleagues from other departments as well theory and method for example and of course this is also a kind of dynamic research environment as well and this I think you have to imagine in the broader context of so as a whole which of course as an entire university focus on focuses on the non-western and so I think what is fairly unique for us is that when you go to a cafe when we can can do that again without mask then then you you may meet people or hear conversations about the same areas you are studying in but just in a different discipline and so this is actually quite remarkable for so as and the atmosphere the other big big advantage of source within London is that the resources that are available to us through the museums with the British Museum in direct proximity through our major libraries the source library and the British Library very close by also the Warburg Institute with its photographic archives is nearby we also have our own teaching collection and actually the image here is an image from the teaching collection not from the from the special collections not from the teaching collections it's from the special collections in the the source library and then we have a teaching collection that is used for curating courses for example to create displays there is also the Brunei gallery a gallery with a kind of changing exhibition program that belongs or is part of of source as well and new among the the buildings the Senate House building is is essentially a new building but it also contains a major library that can also be used along with the National Art Library at the V&A the Victoria and Albert Museum which would be another kind of major resource within London and this is these are just the most important ones for us here in London but there are many many other possibilities as well let's say for example the the Royal Asiatic Society and the events and so on so I think there is a lot of opportunity in London in that sense and accordingly will be working currently on essentially having more hands-on elements in our teaching also in our M.A. teaching you already heard that certain curating courses have hands-on elements already object handling for example but we are working on broadening that that won't be the case for next year even though you may through one form or in one form or another through your studies through the engagements of one of your teachers be involved or at least learn about hands-on activities as well if you think in terms of careers there is of course a broad range of jobs that in the end you can do with a degree at at the history of art and archaeology department and what I think remarkable is because we have students from all over the world we also have a global impact in terms of what students do after the studies here and this list is just yeah just lists the most important or the most common works that the graduates of the M.A. program go into of course many are related to arts like museums and galleries auction houses art archives some of course will continue with an academic career especially if that is their passion but then there are also possibilities that you may not immediately think of like working in NGOs different government sectors agencies cultural and creative industries today is getting kind of a more more and more prominent position and also international aid related projects for example so there is a kind of broad range and as an example I've just brought up one that was recently announced a former M.A. 2006 2007 Eva Langrit was kind of or became the new artistic director of Fries London which is a kind of contemporary art event that and her responsibility will be the strategic development of that artistic program of that London art fair and further alumni profiles of course can be consited on our web page as well and so it's just shows also that you don't need to kind of study further on to have a successful career with an M.A. in the history of art and archaeology so with this we can I think turn to further questions from your side you can either put them in the chat or just unmute yourself and speak it in the microphone any questions don't be shy you can come to the microphone and ask anything yeah or write it in the chat yeah or write it in the chat so obviously there are compulsory modules that then they're kind of recommended ones and then the ones you can choose freely according to the M.A. program that you choose much of that kind of detailed information is found on the website as well but if it's maybe unclear yeah you can always email me specifically I provided my email address in the chat because it's not on the PowerPoint or you ask it now so how has attendance of lectures and tutorials changed yeah let's put it that way last year everything was online and students were actually all over the world at least in my courses they were quite literally all over the world but I think in all courses yeah and so there are students who passed the M.A. of last year without actually having been in London at all and some were extremely successful in doing so now post COVID we have you know adapting to have to adapt to the situation that is here in the UK case rates are still very high which means for this term that seminars will be held in person but lectures will be provided online and but that may also change in term two with more in-person teaching being organized and being enabled by the school what also changed now is that that group activities between students will be enabled in term two and so I think it's by the time you would start in 22 and we hope that it's actually back to normal with the exception of maybe large lectures that may still be held online but otherwise it would be yeah in person delivery and the usual in terms of attendance yeah it depends what how the course is delivered if life attendance is or one of the side effects of doing events online is recording yeah if lectures are recorded students who are in a time zone that makes attendance life very inconvenient would of course prefer to simply read or listen to the recording afterwards at their convenience and so there is a certain amount of students when you do online delivery that prefer to not to attend the live class but to listen to a recording in that sense it if I affected attendance a little bit but it's not major and obviously tutorials and seminars are now in person and except if the student is not yet in London the students just attend as usual I hope that I'm sure that that yeah because some of the seminars and tutorials in fact are split into two groups one is in person and one is online so that the people people who are in London can come in person finally but those who are still unable to come can be offered a tutorial online so we have a mixture of the two yeah and sometimes as in my case one has the those who are not in London join the in person seminar online that is in my course but it's actually very difficult to uh kind of make that interactive so so I actually think in the end it's yeah it's better to be here in person yes yes one thing that I wanted to add as a final remark is that um while thinking about your your MA for next year try and do a study plan that it's exciting for you that it's also coherent with your interests and you can always contact one of us to to look over your study plan and see whether you know it makes sense whether it would be acceptable whether there are other options that you might not have thought about so you know you can start building your study plan from now and don't hesitate to contact us about it it's much better to come already ready with an idea of what you want to do because as Christian said it's one year very intensive so you can start thinking about it in advance and that would sort of facilitate you yeah and maybe what's important in that connection is if you can't decide between the courses you can still do that in the first week if if necessary uh because it may not always be uh that easy to decide which course to take yeah any other question right well maybe then uh we can close here well we uh you know I mean for us has been um a lot of work to change to change teaching to online teaching but actually as Christian was saying there is there is a silver lining in the sense that there are aspects of online teaching that will remain which are useful like the recording of the lectures for example and and so on so but you know we haven't stopped we we go on and in fact we are opening up new courses new degrees as we you've seen and um and yes we're looking forward to see you yeah thanks for coming today thanks for coming Rachel has a a message our last session of the day is our student panel joined here so that would be good if you go there because then you can listen from the students themselves yes Rachel do you want to add anything yeah if uh thank you so much for that great session um students if you would like to um hop on over to our last session of the day um this is an opportunity for you to hear from um current students that saw us so I've popped the link there in the chat so feel free to use that to get in um but thank you again for attending this session okay thank you very much thanks everyone bye bye