Strange Universe: Considering Postwar Modern at the Barbican

Strange Universe - perhaps the most fun I’ve had at PMC. Strange Universe: Explorations of the Modern in Postwar Britain 1945–1965, was a one day conference in June 2022 held in conjunction with the Postwar Modern exhibition at Barbican, exploring the “strange universe” of British art in this period.

Oftentimes working in events, you end up working on projects with subject matter that isn’t quite your style, or you’re not particularly familiar with. But this era of visual art is one of my favourites, and the show itself was a blockbuster which I could have spent hours at.

Even more so, the PMC team came up with a unique approach to the conversations. We invited 12 established academic, historians, curators and artists connected with the show to each pick a handful of objects to frame their discussions. This meant the conversation was less formal and more free-flowing than a stricter academic style conference.

Interesting, there was definitely some firm favourites, with Frank Bowling and David Medalla seemingly defining the zeitgeist. The last panel was a particular favourite, with Barbican’s Head of Visual Art Jane Alison chairing a panel between curator Hammad Nasar and the exhibition’s artist in residence Abbas Zahedi, using a white gallery space to representing those not present in the exhibition and a Stewart Lee | Asian Dub Foundation collab to re-frame the conversation and leave us all with more questions to answer.

The full panel (below) was a selection of many of PMC’s giants in the field of postwar studies, and I’m impressed to say that we got 12 yes’s round our first round asks. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get the audio file of the event, so it becomes suspended in memory instead. Thanks to Sarah Turner and Sria Chatterjee at PMC, Jane Alison, Charlotte Flint and Michal Goldschmidt at Barbican for curating the programme and Dani Convey for all the support for the event. A real pleasure to run throughout!

Conference Programme

10.00–10.30: Curators’ Welcome

Jane Alison (Head of Visual Arts, Barbican)
Charlotte Flint (Assistant Curator, Barbican Art Gallery)
Hilary Floe (Assistant Curator, Barbican Art Gallery)

10.30–11.45: Panel 1

Lynda Nead (Chair) (Pevsner Chair of History of Art, Birkbeck University of London)
Isobel Whitelegg (Director of Postgraduate Research, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester)
Giulia Smith (Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford)

12.00–13.15: Panel 2

Gregory Salter (Chair) (Lecturer, University of Birmingham)
Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani (Lecturer in History of Art, University of Edinburgh)
Ming Tiampo (Professor, Carleton University )

14.15–15.30: Panel 3

Ben Highmore (Chair) (Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Sussex)
Deborah Sugg Ryan (University of Portsmouth)
Claire Zimmerman (University of Michigan)

15.45–17.00: Panel 4

Hammad Nasar (Senior Research Fellow, Paul Mellon Centre),
Jane Alison (Head of Visual Arts, Barbican)
Abbas Zahedi (Associate Artist, Postwar Modern, Barbican)

17.00–17.30: Wrap Up

Chaired by Sarah Victoria Turner (Deputy Director, Paul Mellon Centre)
and Sria Chatterjee (Head of Research and Learning, Paul Mellon Centre)

17.30–18.30: Reception

** Image credit: Big Bird by Frank Bowling (b.1934), from University of Liverpool.