Artists and Academics exhibition 26th of November 2016

To celebrate Coventry’s bid for the City of Culture in 2017 the University of Warwick and Fargo village are bringing 17 artists and 17 academics together for an exhibition of local artists work that aims to bridge the art-science divide. Arty-Folks has chosen to team up with PhD student Rebecca Noble and the collaboration will lead to a piece of work that will be exhibited  for one day only on Saturday 26th of November 10am-6pm at the Fargo Village Box Gallery.

Rebecca Noble (Centre for History of Medicine, Warwick University)
My research is based on understandings of madness in eighteenth-century Mexico and how those understandings affected ideas of personal identity. I look at how the term madness was used in different areas of colonial life, such as the Inquisition, army, criminal justice system, and Christian missions. I also analyse literary texts, medical journals, and colonial bureaucratic records to develop a picture of the varied conceptions of madness in this period with an emphasis on the moral, political, and medical significance of the term. I ask questions such as ‘what worldviews shaped beliefs about madness?’, ‘who was thought to be mad and why?’ and ‘how was the idea of madness used to regulate this society?’ Through answering these questions, I intend to add to a nuanced understanding of what it meant to be human in eighteenth-century Mexico.

We often think about creativity as making something new and original, but in fact the root meaning of the word means ‘to grow’. About 20 members of Progression and Making Way will be working together to create a sculpture entitled ‘Twixt Nature and Nurture’ influenced by her research into madness and by artists Francisco Goya and Hieronymus Bosch. This piece of work will measure 6m long x 2m wide x 2.5-3.0m high and will be made predominantly of paper.

for more information their website