Art Across at Didsbury Arts Festival 2019: A Curious Festival

'Discovering the Cabinet of Curiosities'

24th June 2019

This interactive talk was developed as a response to the theme of the Didsbury Arts Festival for its 2019 edition, 'Curiosity'. Thinking about possible historical ideas around the concept of curiosity, Sara created a talk exploring the fascinating Cabinets of Curiosities, collections of rare and exotic objects, popular in Europe from 1500.

The audience was guided into an illustrated presentation of the categories of objects that usually featured in those collections, reflecting on what made them being regarded as 'curious' in past centuries, and what they represented for the people who collected and displayed them. A final reflection brought the group to discuss what a Cabinet of Curiosities would include and look like today, thinking about the themes of wonder, diversity, knowledge, as well as, of course, curiosity itself.