The Ursula Hoff Lecture 2018
'I Can Connect" - the Power of Curating to Share Experiences
Speaker: Professor Michael Tooby, Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University
Ursula Hoff’s career is a vivid example of dedication to curatorial expertise. At the same time, her extraordinary life story warrants retelling and sharing, not least as a warning from history of the need to challenge racism and prejudice towards migrants. In his lecture, Professor Michael Tooby will explore how testimony has played a key role in his recent curatorial projects. His starting point will be the use of William Blake’s Illustrations to Dante in a recent major British exhibition, Journeys with “The Waste Land”, a link to Ursula Hoff’s curatorial interests. He will discuss how this exhibition was created by the collective sharing of different life experiences and expertise by over 100 participants in its curating. He will show how this process was informed by his previous interest in testimony when co-curating faith-based and minority cultural projects in Wales, such as The Muslim World on Your Doorstep’ and Hineni: belonging and identity in a Jewish community.
The Ursula Hoff Lecture is presented annually in honour of the distinguished curator, art historian and academic, Dr Ursula Hoff AO OBE (1909-2005).
The Australian Institute of Art History is pleased to assist the Ursula Hoff Institute in presenting the Ursula Hoff Lecture for 2018 and acknowledges the generous support of the S R Stoneman Foundation. Professor Tooby’s visit to Australia has been supported by a grant from the ANU Research School of Humanities and the Arts.
Image: 'Journeys with "The Waste Land"' at Turner Contemporary in Margate with works by Henrik Hakansonn and Cy Twombly. Photo by Thierry Bal.