Amerindian Art Histories and Archaeologies:

A KHI – UCL Symposium on Material Transformations in the Indigenous Americas

Virtual academic event, hosted by the Kunsthistorisches Institut (KHI) in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut

The event will take place on Wednesdays from 5 pm to 7:30 CET in February 2023.
Registration will be required for everyone before every lecture (including lecturers and organisers).
The event will be recorded and shared online afterwards.
Language: English
Format and number of participants and sessions: 4 sessions, 3 papers per session (12 participants in total); 30
minutes per paper; 60 minutes for discussion after the three papers (total time per session: 2 hours and 30 minutes).

In the framework of Department Gerhard Wolf and the research and fellowship program “4A Laboratory: Art
Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies, Aesthetics” (on behalf of the KHI), in collaboration with UCL Institute
of Archaeology.

Series organisers
Sanja Savkić Šebek (KHI in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut & Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Bat-ami Artzi
(CSoC, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; former 4A_Lab Fellow), in collaboration with Elizabeth Baquedano
(UCL Institute of Archaeology)

The KHI – UCL symposium will convene art historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and
museologists who share interests in the transformative potential of matter and materials stemming from
different social and aesthetic practices. These practices are manifest in creative works produced by
indigenous peoples across the Americas from ancient times to the present. In each of the four sessions,
three researchers will bring into conversation case studies from a diverse set of indigenous cultural
traditions and address a specific type of materiality.
Materiality is currently a focus area of research in art history and archaeology as well as in a
number of related disciplines. Studies of Amerindian creations with a “pragmatic approach” are
particularly stimulating as they further underline the importance of ritual action for the engagement
with material culture. According to this perspective, the meanings of (art)works are not only
metaphorical, they lie in the choice of raw materials and in the techniques and processes of their making.
As such, the materials themselves are what is privileged, as well as working with them (in terms of a
knowledge-practice or ritual action).
In numerous Amerindian myths, raw materials such as clay, wood, bone, maize, among many
others, have a central place. Consider for instance a Chimu tradition of the Peruvian northern coast
which recounts the origin of the people as deriving from three eggs: one made of gold, one of silver,
and one of copper. This illustrates a conceptualization that material support not only connects to the
very essence of humans, but also to other beings and artifacts. Further, artistic materials are not some
inert substances, rather they are thought to possess life force and agency, which become fully expressed
through the process of creation. In this way, in efforts to understand different Amerindian artistic
expressions, it is necessary to take the material support into consideration as an inseparable layer of any
object (that is, when substance changes from one thing to another), which contributes to the core of the
piece, its being, aesthetics and function.
This symposium’s participants will attend to the several interrelated issues: 1) the processing
of matter adapted for different functions, with changing texture, surface and deep structure, aesthetic
and other properties and qualities; 2) the mobilization of resources both raw and refined (e.g., their
origin, modes of extraction, acquisition, exchange and trade), including the mobility of techniques and
technologies; 3) the processes of image-making; 4) the intersection of various media and materials; 5)
the transmaterial dynamics of matter; 6) multi-materiality and multisensory creations and experiences,
as well as their functions, uses and reception. Furthermore, participants will explore Indigenous
intellectual engagements with material phenomena like theorizations of materiality, how it embodies
the sacred, and how different materialities—human, animal, environmental—act on each other in
artistic contexts.

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 Twelve participating scholars will present on the topics listed below, followed by Q&A and
discussion.

Sessions:

1. Interplay between materialities and sensory experiences (February 1, 2023)

2. Working with stone (February 8, 2023)

3. Between liquid and solid: metals and their transformation (February 15, 2023)

4. The materiality of colour: painted skins, feathers, and threads (February 22, 2023)

Contact:

Sanja Savkić Šebek Bat-ami Artzi Elizabeth Baquedano

KHI Research Associate, CSoC, Ben-Gurion University of the Honorary Associate Professor
Project “Bilderfahrzeuge” Negev / former 4A_Lab Fellow UCL Institute of Archaeology
E-Mail: sanja.savkic@khi.fi.it E-Mail: bat-ami.artzi@mail.huji.ac.il E-Mail: e.baquedano@ucl.ac.uk

The result of this academic event will be an edited volume.

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The Kunsthistorisches Institut (KHI) in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institute [Max Planck Institute for
Art History in Florence] is one of the oldest institutions for art-historical research in the world. Its
research is dedicated to the histories of art and architecture in a transcultural and global perspective,
with a focus on Italy, Europe and the Mediterranean. A prime concern of projects and collaborations is
to combine historical research with a critical engagement in current debates and challenges, such as
ecology, heritage, urbanization, migration and diversity; aesthetic and artistic practices; media and
material cultures; the digital transformation and the future of museums. In recent times, the research
has expanded to study other parts of the world. In regard to the Americas, the KHI has collaborated for
many years with different researchers and institutions on the mediality and materiality of images in
early colonial Mexico, as well as organized its first Amerindian Lecture Series which took place online
in autumn 2021 (https://www.khi.fi.it/en/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/2021/09/khi-amerindian-lecture-
series.php and https://vimeo.com/showcase/9359412).

UCL Institute of Archaeology

The UCL Institute of Archaeology is recognised as one of the leading academic departments of
Archaeology in the world. It is the largest department within its field in the UK. It offers a uniquely
stimulating environment with more than 60 staff pursuing high-quality research across five continents.
We are at the forefront of global archaeology, conservation and heritage studies. The Institute has a
long and unique involvement – for a British institution – in the archaeology of the America’s going
back to the time of Warwick Bray. In recent years a range of researchers from the Institute have
sustained a teaching and research presence in the Americas.

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