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The Manitoba Historical Society is hosting a special Archival Talk & Tour of "The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts An Exhibition Curated by Dr. Serena Keshavjee".
Join us at the University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections for a talk about this unique and ghostly special archival collection with its Curator, Dr. Serena Keshavjee, who will be joined by retired UM Archivist Shelley Sweeney to share their work with this historical collection of photographs, contemporary artworks, and scientific documents. We will then move on as a group just minutes away to the School of Art Gallery, SOAG, to view the Undead Archive exhibition of contemporary artworks that were created as a response to this ghostly, and psychic archive.
Dr. Serena Keshavjee teaches art and architecture at the University of Winnipeg. Her research always begins in the archives, and she focuses on the intersection of art and science in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially the shared formal elements between artists and scientists. Currently she has a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant to analyse the Hamilton photographs from a visual culture lens, published in the anthology The Art of Ectoplasm (University of Manitoba Press, 2023).
Dr. Shelley Sweeney is Archivist Emerita and Retired Head, University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, Winnipeg. She has written and made many presentations about the Hamilton Family séance collection to local, national and international audiences.
A Historical Glimpse:
One hundred years ago, renowned author and Spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited Winnipeg to give a lecture on communicating with ghosts and spirits. In the audience that night were Winnipeg physician Thomas Glendenning Hamilton, and his wife, Lillian Hamilton, a nurse. The Hamiltons went on to conduct hundreds of controlled séance experiments investigating the possibility of personalities surviving corporeal death. These experiments resulted in a series of captivating photographs, which form the core of The Undead Archive. The Undead Archive and the accompanying anthology, The Art of Ectoplasm, contextualize the photographs from an art historical point of view, revealing attitudes to science and religion after World War I and the 1919 pandemic.
In the 1930s, Dr. Hamiltons photographs were received in some international circles as scientific evidence of life after death. In the early 2000s, they were digitized and circulated online, receiving a second wave of recognition, including by many artists. Featuring séance-related archival manuscripts, alternative scientific documents, and contemporary artworks in a variety of media, The Undead Archive highlights how contemporary artists from Winnipeg and around the world have responded to these photographs.
Showcased Talent:
Co-presented by the University of Winnipegs Gallery 1C03, University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, and the University of Manitobas School of Art Gallery, the exhibition features the work of twenty-two artists: KC Adams, Irene Bindi, Aston Coles, Celia Coles + Martin Finkenzeller, Teresa Burrows, Estelle Chaigne, Erika DeFreitas, Lily Despic, Chris Dorosz, Sarah Hodges-Kolisnyk, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson + Guy Maddin, Jodie Mack, Susan MacWilliam, Megan Moore, Michael Pittman, Paul Robles, Shannon Taggart, Tricia Wasney, Wendt + Dufaux, and Grace A. Williams, with historical photographs and documents from the Hamilton Family Fonds, housed at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections and the Survival Research Institute of Canada.
The Undead Archive is presented with the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council. The exhibition draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
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LocationUniversity of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, Elizabeth Dafoe Library (View)
330 Elizabeth Dafoe Library, University of Manitoba, Fort Garry Campus.
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Canada
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