Dr Piola Massarotto takes part in the symposium at Tate Britain

11/07/2008

Dr Piola Massarotto takes part in the symposium at Tate Britain

Dr Piola Massarotto takes part in the symposium on 'Orientalism Revisited: Art and the Politics of Representation' at Tate Britain, Friday 13 June 2008

On Friday 13 June 2008, I took part in the symposium on 'Orientalism
Revisited: Art and the Politics of Representation', hosted at Tate Britain, London.

This symposium was organised as part of the museum's exhibition on 'The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting', which in turn marks thirty years since the publication of Edward Said's radical book 'Orientalism'.

The day-long debate saw a succession of excellent papers delivered by leading experts who specialise on Orientalist matters not only from an art-historical point of view, but also in relation to the wider historical, cultural and political spheres.

Furthermore, the fact that many of them came from non-western, and in particular middle-eastern, scholarly contexts ensured lively and stimulating discussions at the end of each session, and elicited thought-provoking answers and comments from the audience.

Overall, the symposium critiqued Said's Orientalist theories as perhaps excessively rigid, and demonstrated instead that, aside from their historical juxtaposition, the West and the Orient were also involved in a more subtly varied, and decidedly less binary, range of interconnected responses.

On a more personal level, after three years of teaching Western and Non-Western Art at Richmond University, I also found the day an excellent opportunity to broaden my knowledge, confront my views about Orientalism with those of leading experts in this field, and establish new contacts with a view to developing future collaborative ventures between other academic institutions and our own.

Link to this page: http://www.richmond.ac.uk/n/536.aspx