Kate Pretty Lecture

Luke Syson, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, who was due to give the Kate Pretty Lecture in 2020, agreed to speak this year instead. A year on, with a year’s familiarity with remote events, we were able to make a virtue of distance, bringing the museum directly into people’s homes.

Speaking on the subject of ‘Why does a University need an art collection? Making the most of the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge’, Luke explored changing perspectives on the purpose of museums and their interaction with education; how shifting attitudes to race and gender alter the way the collections are perceived; and how an understanding of the context in which objects and artworks were created can inform both our response to them and our view of our own times.

Moving through the museum, Luke chose a small selection of individual items to discuss and present, allowing the audience an intimate engagement with the collections which would not have been possible at a live lecture. Ranging from a 1,000 year-old Korean teapot to coins stamped with political graffiti by both suffragettes and Irish republicans, the talk was both a wonderfully inviting glimpse of what the Fitzwilliam has to offer, and a manifesto for the urgency of ensuring that collections such as this speak to contemporary concerns.

Over 400 people registered for the lecture, many more than could be accommodated in person. While we look forward to being able to welcome future speakers with our usual hospitality, it was exciting to reap the benefits of such an imaginative approach to distanced speaking.

The lecture is available to view in full at www.homersphere.org/blog/kpl2021