‘Introduction to Gravity with Penny McCarthy’ – First lecture of the Gravity 2020: Museum series on Thursday 30 January

Gravity: Museum

We look forward to a new season of Gravity lectures convened in partnership with Museums Sheffield. Through Gravity, we offer an innovation platform that aims to build a learning community seeking new forms of understanding of art practice through speculative conversations that are often propositional and co-created between students and speakers. Each presentation will begin with a discussion of an object from the museum collections in relation to art practice. In preparation for the lectures, you may wish to reflect on artefacts held in Sheffield’s museum archives. What is the significance of these collections in relation to the city’s history? What is preserved and why? What do these artefacts tell us about art and culture?

The first lecture in the series takes place on Thursday 30 January 2020.

Introduction to Gravity with Penny McCarthy
The Cadman Room, Millennium Gallery Sheffield
Thursday 30 January, 4PM-6PM

Over the years, Penny McCarthy’s practice has centred around her engagement with archives by making images and objects that replicate archival objects.

Penny will introduce the series of Gravity lectures through a presentation that considers the poetic and imaginative sensibility of museum collections, and particular artist’s works that have centred around these concerns. These multi-faceted art projects have included public actions, digital works, casting, photography and painting.

Penny McCarthy works primarily with drawing and text, often making works that consider the things that get remembered and preserved over time. Her work is presented internationally in a variety of contexts: in museums and galleries, at conferences, and as live projects and publications. Penny’s work has been supported by the Henry Moore Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England and Arts and Humanities Research Council. She was awarded the Evelyn Williams Drawing Prize in 2019. Her recent projects have been for Liquid Crystal Display at Site Gallery, Sheffield, Picture Room in New York and Beware the Cat, a research collaboration touring theatres including the RSC Stratford in 2019. She is working towards a solo exhibition at Hastings Contemporary that will open in 2021. Penny is a Reader in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University and Course Leader for Postgraduate Fine Art.

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Gravity is a series of lectures led by Penny McCarthy, Gary Simmonds and Andrew Sneddon.

Image credit: detail from The Temple of Time by Emma Willard (1846).