Boston Flora

Tag: Reaktion

  • Friday, February 11, 9:00 am – 10:00 am EST – Women, Botany, and Art: From the Garden to the Easel, Online

    In this highly illustrated Berkshire Gardens Trust talk on Friday, February 11, Dr Twigs Way will present an overview of the role of female artists in floral and botanic art from the 16th to the 19th century. Including discussion of the lives and works of female artists including Giovanna Garzoni, Maria van Oosterwijck, Rachel Ruysch, Elizabeth Blackwell, Mary Moser, Mary Delany (and Queen Charlotte); and Augusta Withers and Sarah Drake. 

    Floral art has been often dismissed as a ‘pleasing pastime’ for ladies of leisure, but this talk will explore how an association with floral and botanical works enabled women to enter the male-dominated worlds of art and science. Twigs will consider themes including perceived divisions between floral and botanic art, the amateur and the professional, the role of royal patronage and scientific studies, and of course the vexed question of marriage

    ​Twigs Way is a garden historian, writer and researcher. Twigs is fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her talks and books reflect that endless curiosity, with books on plants and gardens exploring themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature:  every plant has a tale to tell, every garden a past.  

    Twigs is an accredited Arts Society lecturer and her history of the Chrysanthemum in art and culture was published by Reaktion in 2020. She is currently working on the “equally golden daffodil”.

    ​Booking: Please book online. The tickets are £5 each.  We will send you a Zoom link for the lecture a few days before the 11th February. The lecture will last approximately 1 hour, followed by questions. The lecture will NOT be recorded.  

    ​Queries: Please contact Janet by email at bgtmembership@gmail.com

    Still Life with Bowl of Citrons, late 1640s.By Giovanna Garzoni

  • Wednesday, April 13, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Fast Food: A Global Perspective

    Fast food is the most pervasive culinary trend of our time, for better and worse. Large multinational chains run an estimated one million outlets in virtually every corner of the world, serving hundreds of millions of customers every day. Scathing exposés have charged that the industry harms the environment, undermines the health of customers, degrades the diets of children, and underpays its workers. So why has this industry remained so successful? What makes observers so critical? And what are the options for the future? Andrew F. Smith, a culinary historian who teaches in the Food Studies Department at the New School in Manhattan, explores these questions and more. He is the author or editor of twenty-eight books, including his latest, Fast Food: The Good, Bad and Hungry (Reaktion, 2016). This free lecture, part of the Pepin Lecture Series in Food Studies and Gastronomy, will take place Wednesday, April 13 beginning at 6 pm in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 211. Register at www.bu.edu/foodandwine/