Tuesday 29 March 2011

Art and Evolutionary Biopolitics

TVAD member Dr Pat Simpson, Social History of Art and Research Tutor for the School of Creative Arts, has received a grant from the British Academy to pursue her project 'Art and Evolutionary Biopolitics: The Moscow Darwin Museum in the 1920s-1930s'. The project, to be carried out from March 2011 to February 2013, will explore the relationship between art and evolutionary bio-politics at the Darwin Museum, Moscow. It centres on the work of artist and scientist Vasilii Vatagin, who is virtually unknown in the West. One of the main objectives is to enlarge western knowledge of Vatagin, and to locate his work in the within Soviet debates about ape research, genetics, eugenics, and Lamarckian-style interpretations of Darwin from the 1920s-1930s. The published outcomes will be of interest to scholars and the general public. For further information, please contact Dr Pat Simpson.