On Collecting: Sense and Sensibility

9 May 2023 7-8.30pm

Overview

Join us for a conversation that dives into the act of collecting, prompted by the ‘fields’ in the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Making Sense. We will explore collections as sites for making sense, and radical modes of collecting seemingly ordinary things.

Think of almost any thing and there is probably someone collecting it. In the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Making Sense, we are faced with vast 'fields' of objects the artist has amassed since the 1990s including stone age tools, porcelain spouts and Lego bricks.

Collections play a key role in producing knowledge and histories, and the act of collecting can indicate an attempt at making sense of our worlds. The event will address the psychology, philosophy, and politics of collecting, and what can we learn from collections – whether institutional or private – about temporality, order, care, identity, power, meaning making and shifting notions of value.

Join the Community Producer of South Asia gallery at Manchester Museum Nusrat Ahmed and independent curator Rose Lejeune, in conversation with Curatorial and Communications Director of STIR Samta Nadeem to consider a spectrum of ideas on collecting.
 

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