Art for Life’s Sake

A symposium on Women, Gender, Class and
Victorian Cultural Philanthropy

Saturday/Sunday 16/17th November 2002
Conference Centre,
Sir James Mathews Building,
 Southampton Institute

Southampton Institute will host an international symposium on ‘moral
aesthetics’ or the Victorian notion that the purpose of art was to improve
or civilize man.  The topics covered are wide ranging, including the Arts
and Crafts Movement, the Home Arts Movement, Settlements, individual women
artists, women as patrons and consumers, education, the influence of Wilde
and Morris.  It will also examine gender roles and boundaries.

Although there are exceptions, generally speaking women did not have the
financial resources to endow art galleries, museums or libraries.
Similarly they were constrained as benefactors in terms of collection
giving.  What they did have was plenty of time and many felt morally bound
to find a vocation. Indeed for many women philanthropy was literally a life-
saver, a relief from boredom and stagnation, and offered a means of
extending their physical and social boundaries.  A mission in the East End
of London was exciting, simulating and rewarding.  The role of women in
social work is well documented and accounts have centred on women and child
welfare, education, housing and sanitation.  This symposium seeks to
address the complex notion of ‘cultural equality’ or how the working
classes were to be raised to appreciate the values of the middle classes.
The upper and middle classes enjoyed what we now think of as culture, the
arts.   Some believed that the poor deserved the same ‘riches’ or
privileges as the elite.   How such notions were argued, debated, how
culture was transmitted and issues of inclusion and resistance are the
focus of this symposium.

The keynote speaker will be Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Exeter University, well
known for her work on Oscar Wilde, Aestheticism and Commodity Culture and
Individuality.
Other speakers include Maggie Andrews, Edward Bird, Jennie Brunton, Jan
Carder, Jim Chesire, Elizabeth Crawford,  Meaghan Clarke, Fiona Darling-
Glinski, Richard Frith, Janet Floyd, Tony Garland, Heather Haskins, Janice
Helland,  Sara Lenaghan, Ruth Livesey,  Diana Maltz, Joseph McBrinn, Morna
O’Neill, Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Talia Schaffer, Hilary Underwood, Jaya
Venkatraman, Kim Wahl,  and Shelagh Wilson.

Registration fee £70 or £60 for students and members of the WHN.
This includes tea, coffee and lunch.  The symposium dinner is extra.
Accommodation is not included.  For further details contact Dr Anne
Anderson, FMAS, Southampton Institute, Southampton SO14 ORF. E-mail
[log in to unmask] Web-site www.solent.ac.uk/artandlife for a
registration form