Episode 1: Boats

Our first episode of bip[art]isan was inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis and the role boats have played in moving bodies, often bringing either salvation or destruction. We discuss the imagery of such vessels across time and space, focusing on diverse examples from a sixteenth-century Persian manuscript photoshopped to reflect twenty-first-century problems, J. M. W. Turner's 1840 The Slave Ship, and even a 2008 incisive African critique of an eighteenth-century slave ship.

Humans of New York, (Kos, Greece), September 27. 2015

Shahpour Pouyan, God Sets the Course for the Ship, and Not the Captain. Photograph: Shahpour Pouyan/Lawrie Shabibi/Copperfield Gallery

J. M. W. Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840

Diagram of the 'Brookes' Slave Ship, ca. 1801, British Library

Viktor Ekpuk, Slave Narrative, 2008, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

Welcome!

Welcome to bip[art]isan, a podcast based in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland. We aim to make art history accessible beyond the confines of academia and art museums by connecting the history of art to current events. Through informal, yet intellectually structured conversations and interviews, bip[art]isan strives to create a space where we can demystify art history and reveal the discipline's compelling urgency and relevance to a wider audience.

Who are we?

Caroline Paganussi, co-founder and co-editor
Caroline is a PhD student studying sixteenth-century Italian art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on the art of Bologna, and the ways in which political and religious instability as well as a transient population informed the city’s artistic output. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Bart Pushaw, co-founder and co-editor
Bart is a PhD student in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, where he studies the intersections of race, gender, identity, and intercultural contacts in the context of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century global modernisms. His research focuses specifically on the role of art in multicultural societies, especially in the Baltic and Nordic countries, at the zenith of global imperialism. He lives in Washington, D.C.