We welcome you to Substance and Surface at Strawberry Hill, a symposium convened by the Courtauld Institute’s own MA Curating students, in partnership with.
Substance and Surface at Strawberry Hill will bring together academics, curators and creatives in a half-day symposium. The programme aims to explore the tension between the physical materiality and imaginative legacy of Horace Walpole’s Gothic villa. Talks by esteemed scholars will delve into the heritage of Strawberry Hill House as the blueprint for the 18th century Gothic Revival, and its ongoing legacy as an inspiration for gothic literature and film into the 19th and 20th centuries. A panel of creative voices will explore how contemporary interventions can transform historic spaces in the present.
“My buildings, like my writings, are of paper, and will blow away ten years after I am dead.”ÌýÌý
The organisers welcome symposium guests and the general public alike to visit .ÌýThe symposium is convened by the MA Curating: Strawberry Hill House Exhibition Project.Ìý
Schedule for the day:
13.30 – 14.00: Registration opens
Courtauld Institute, Vernon Square
14.00 – 14.10: Welcome
Introduction by MA Curating Students
14.10 – 15.20: Session 1
Martin Myrone, Head of Research Support & Pathways, Paul Mellon Centre
‘A complete genius and a complete rogue’: History, Romance and the Eighteenth-Century Gothic
Dr James Lesslie, Lecturer in English Literature, St Mary’s University.
‘Gloomth’ and the manipulation of illumination at Strawberry Hill
Dr Rebecca Tropp, Archivist at Crosby Moran Hall and Affiliated Lecturer, History of Art, University of Cambridge.
15.20 – 15.40: Comfort break
Coffee and tea
15.40 – 15.50: Welcome
Introduction by MA Curating Students
15.50 – 16.50: Session 2
Contemporary Art and the Heritage House: A Pitzhanger Perspective
Rebecca Lyons, Director of Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery
Horace Walpole’s Gothic Closet
Kleanthis Kyriakou, Associate Lecturer, Architecture, Central Saint Martins
Spatial Labyrinths in the Gothic fiction and film, Otranto to Backrooms
Professor Roger Luckhurst, Geoffrey Tillotson Chair of Nineteenth-Century Studies, Birkbeck, University of London
16.50 – 17.00: Poetry reading by Rupa Latif Rupa
17.00 – 17.30: Panel conversation
Artists Kleanthis Kyriakou and Annemarieke Kloosterhof, and poet Rupa Latif Rupa
17.30 – 19.00: Drinks Reception
