- Venue
- Gods House Tower
- Date
- Thursday, March 12, 2020
06:00 PM - Address
- Town Quay, Road, Southampton SO14 2NY
- Location
- South West England
- Organiser
- Gods House Tower
From monster waves to beached shells, from ocean liners to lone swimmers, from port cities to coral tentacles; the most expansive and the most minute seascapes are continually being rendered in visual and textual art. But what can the relationship between the visual and the written tell us about the past and present of our maritime world?
This is a question that animates researchers in the School of Humanities at the University of Southampton and helps them to find new ways of understanding the significance of the sea within pressing conversations about imperialism, nationalism, industrialization, migrancy, labour, and the natural environment.
This evening of short talks and open conversation will cross 700 years of history, literature and art, but will focus on eclectic maritime materials in which words and images have a particularly intimate and vivid relationship. We will introduce and discuss the texts and images that constitute Medieval maps of the world ocean; 17th and 18th century illustrated books about pirates; the visual and textual sketches within 18th and 19th century ship’s logs and journals; the curious relationship between ships, printers and books in Victorian Southampton; seaside postcards of the early 20th century; and the imagery and narration of the ocean and its crossings in documentary and fictional film.
