‘Making’ Sense – Embodied Experiences in the Art Museum and Alternative Way

In this event for the Centre for Arts and Learning 'Known and Unknown' series, Dr Kimberley Foster will reflect on her practice research and recent fellowship at Cambridge to discuss her ongoing interest in alternative ways of knowing within the art museum context. She will share examples of the Pedagogical Art Objects she creates and how their enactment seeks new material entry points into dialogue with collections and exhibits. These embodied and performative object encounters challenge habitual perceptions and confront established institutional knowledge hierarchies. They encourage subjective and speculative inquiry, interrupting conventional ways of understanding whilst valuing and respecting the autobiographical.

In conversation, Kimberley and Dr Lisa Newby will discuss their recent collaborative dialogues at the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens and the Fitzwilliam Museum. They will explore their shared interests in finding creative and open responses to museum collections and will discuss how using Pedagogical Art Objects in these spaces allowed them to maintain a productive state of uncertainty.

While they recognise that most contemporary galleries and museums aim to foster dynamic relationships between objects and people, they question when this engagement is effective, for whom it serves, and under what terms. How do our own stories, knowledges and ideas become visible alongside the public narratives of these settings?

In-person attendance is recommended. This will be a hybrid event.

For further information please contact Miranda Matthews - m.matthews@gold.ac.uk

Dr Kimberley Foster is an artist and academic whose research focuses on embodied approaches to learning and interpretation in art museums. She explores how a distinct material approach, connected to specifically designed Pedagogical Art Objects, can engage diverse forms of knowledge and enhance the museum materialised experience. She is part of an established collaboration sorhed and has been commissioned widely. Kimberley is currently a Cambridge Visual Culture visiting research fellow with the focus of her work taking place at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Dr Lisa Newby is an art historian, specialising in postwar British art and exhibition histories. Her research focuses on the dynamics of dialogue and the changing relevance of museum collections for artists and other creative practitioners. She is a Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia and from 2023-25 was a postdoctoral researcher at the Henry Moore Foundation. Lisa has recently been appointed Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Norwich Castle.