Curatorial staff highlight ongoing research and recent discoveries at annual day-long symposium Friday, March 6, 2009
On Friday, March 6, 2009, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) welcomes all to the 30th Annual ROM Research Colloquium and Vaughan Lecture, a thought-provoking one-day event highlighting the ROM’s ongoing research and recent discoveries. Fifteen-minute presentations delivered by ROM curatorial staff feature a wide array of topics, including sea spiders, Russian and Japanese warships, Chinese teapots, and scorpion fossils found in Ontario. This free program begins at 9:15 am in the ROM’s Signy & Cléophée Eaton Theatre. Attendees should enter though the Loblaws Entrance on the south side of the building. Museum admission is not included.
Christian Dior: History & Modernity, featured as this year’s annual Vaughan Lecture, takes place at 5:30 pm. Delivered by Dr. Alexandra Palmer, the Nora E. Vaughan Fashion Costume Curator of the ROM’s Department of World Cultures, the lecture delves into the fascinating history of Christian Dior and his impact on modern fashion.
COLLOQUIUM SCHEDULE: (A more detailed schedule of presentation abstracts is available upon request; lectures are subject to change. *denotes speaker
9:00 am Doors Open
9:15 am Opening Remarks by Mark Engstrom, Deputy Director, Collections and Research
9:30 am The First Period Rooms in a Canadian Museum
Ross Fox, Associate Curator (Canadiana Furniture) Department of World Cultures
9:45 am Fossil Scorpions from the Silurian (Wenlock) Eramosa Lagerstätte, Bruce Peninsula Ontario
Janet Waddington, Assistant Curator (Palaeobiology), David Rudkin, Assistant Curator (Palaeobiology), Department of Natural History
10:00 am Musings on the Origin of Personification in South Asian Art
Beth Knox, Technician (Greek & Roman), Department of World Cultures
10:15 am Coffee Break
10:45 am A Passage in the Life of a Palampore: Conservation
Shirley Ellis, Textile Conservator, Conservation Department
11:00 am Thick Knees, All Legs, and Fossil “No-Bodies”
David Rudkin(1)*, Assistant Curator (Palaeobiology), Michael Cuggy(2), Graham Young(3), and Debbie Thompson(3)
(1)Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum
(2)Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon SK
(3)Manitoba Museum, Winnipeg, MB
11:15 am Surviving Warships of the Period of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905
Corey Keeble, Curator (European Decorative Arts), Department of World Cultures
11:30 am Holey Aroids – Circular Trenching Behaviour by Leaf Beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) on Araceae in Southeast Asia
Chris Darling, Senior Curator (Entomology), Department of Natural History
11:45 am Lunch Break
1:00 pm A Four-Faced Figure from Eastern Nigeria: Idol or Fantasy?
Silvia Forni, Curator (Ethnology), Department of World Cultures
1:15 pm Mayflowers and (False-) Solomon’s Seals: What’s Up Underground?
Tim A. Dickinson, Curator (Botany) & Marta Heckel, Volunteer, Green Plant Herbarium
1:30 pm A Brief Report on the Coffin of a Wab Priest, ROM 910.5 and its Inhabitant
Gayle Gibson, Teacher Education and Programs, Education Department
1:45 pm Genomics Research on Extinct and Living Birds: Reconstructing the Avian Tree of Life
Allan Baker, DNH Head/Senior Curator (Ornithology) and Oliver Haddrath, Technician (Ornithology), Department of Natural History
2:00 pm Coffee Break
2:30 pm Origins and Biogeography of Bats in South America
Burton Lim, Assistant Curator (Mammalogy), Department of Natural History
2:45 pm Chinese Yixing (Red Stoneware) Teapots as a Source of Silver Design, 1675-1825
Peter Kaellgren, Curator (European Decorative Arts, Silver, Ceramics, Glass, Furniture), Department of World Cultures
3:00 pm Geology and Tourism in Ontario
Vince Vertolli, Assistant Curator (Geology), Department of Natural History
3:15 pm A Chinese Tomb of AD 150 from China’s Northwestern Frontier in the ROM
Klaas Ruitenbeek, Senior Curator (Far Eastern), Department of World Cultures
3:30 pm Coffee Break
4:00 pm The Pottery Jug that Was Not Eaten (ROM G1779)
Karin Ruehrdanz, Curator, Islamic Decorative Arts, Department of World Cultures
4:15 pm A New Group of Cichlid Fishes from the Guiana Shield Highlands: Discoveries from the “Lost World” in the Field and in the Lab
Hernán López-Fernández, Associate Curator of Freshwater Fishes, Department of Natural History
4:30 pm Becoming Wari: Creating International Identities in Ninth Century AD Peru
Justin Jennings, Associate Curator of New World Archaeology, Department of World Cultures
4:45 pm ROM’s Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead Resurrected
Roberta Shaw, Assistant Curator (Egyptian Arts & Culture), Department of World Culture & Janet Cowan, Paper Conservator, Department of Conservation
5:30 pm VAUGHAN LECTURE
Christian Dior: History & Modernity
Alexandra Palmer, Curator (Textiles & Costume), Department of World Cultures, Royal Ontario Museum
The Paris haute couture salon of Christian Dior opened on February 12, 1947 in the aftermath of the Second World War. Overnight Dior was internationally known as the fashion designer who saved Paris couture by designing the New Look, a style with rounded shoulders, cinched in waist and long skirts. He evoked the great historical political and artistic moments of France. Christian Dior was a master of the avant garde working in traditional haute couture techniques that reworked historical styles, construction and cut to offer new fashions as well as new techniques for production. Dior’s idea of femininity reframed and dominated women’s fashion in the post war years.
The name of Christian Dior was a cultural and economic phenomenon. A visit to the haute couture salon or the boutique was a must for tourists in Paris. Within six years, the corporation had expanded to include eight companies and 16 associated enterprises across five continents. The house of Dior was the first couture enterprise to create and control its own name through extensive licenses that ranged from perfume, stockings, shoes and bathing suits to men’s ties. It was an unprecedented growth that made the house of Christian Dior account for 55 percent of all Paris exports, and an international household name.
This talk will discuss how Christian Dior became, as Time Magazine noted, “Atlas, holding up the entire French fashion industry” in the 1950s.