Sculpting Slippery Identities: Figured Ivories from Sierra Leone

Research Seminar

This event will be streamed live on our streaming channel
Datum: 28.09.2020
Uhrzeit: 11:00 - 13:00
Vortragende: Ingrid Greenfield
Ort: Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22, 00187 Rom
Kontakt: freiberg@biblhertz.it

Sculpting Slippery Identities: Figured Ivories from Sierra Leone

As trade relationships developed between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, goods and people moved—some with consent, others seized or coerced—between continents in increasing numbers. In the contact zone of Sierra Leone, representations of the human body were spaces where the realities of cultural encounter could be creatively registered, digested, resisted, or distorted.

Human figures deployed in conjunction with animal bodies, who have their own rich cultural profiles, were particularly potent sites for the production of meaning, generated at both the material and the iconographic levels. Focusing on African-made ivory objects, this paper explores the potential significance of certain motifs, identities, and artistic choices within the complex systems of belief and material practice in West Africa, and their reception in European princely collections.  

Ingrid Greenfield is Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant to the Director for Academic Programs at I Tatti, Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.

This event will be streamed live on our streaming channel.
On-site participation is possible as long as there are enough seats available. Therefore we ask you to contact Mara Freiberg via email as soon as possible: freiberg@biblhertz.it

Scientific Organization: David Zagoury