The Sydney Chapter would like to invite you all to join us for our upcoming events:
 
Online Catch-up

• Wednesday 29th July, 5pm
• RSVP via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/awaws-sydney-july-meet-up-tickets-113423841764?aff=erelpanelorg

we are holding an online catch up session from 5pm. Bring your own snacks, tea or even a glass of wine as we get together and welcome in semester 2 of what has been a truly wild year so far.

 Online Talk - Animating the ancient world – a past that still dances

• Wednesday 12 August, 5pm
• RSVP via eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/animating-the-ancient-world-a-past-that-still-dances-tickets-114375405918

About the talk:
What perspectives can contemporary artists gain from archaeological museums and sites? And what do contemporary practices give back to the understanding of these ancient worlds? With a practice as a sculptor and animator, Hannah Gee has observed and made reference to archaeological artefacts for over ten years. Through visiting archaeological sites and museums in Athens, Turkey, Italy, Crete and Cyprus, the access to objects provides an immense platform to produce work, as well as examine the deep past and acknowledge the shared human impetus to create over millennia. Join Hannah as she discusses the impact of working with archaeologists and archaeological material on her artistic practice and her curatorial approach to exhibit contemporary Australian art.
 
About our speaker:
Hannah has worked with artists and objects since 2011. With a Bachelor of Creative Arts (hons) from the University of Wollongong, her artistic focus remains in sculpture, animation and video installation. Having undertaken a Masters of Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Sydney, her critical area of interest is the flexibility of new media in contemporary art as applied to the stalemate within institutions regarding disputes over material repatriation. She is currently the Exhibitions and programs coordinator at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, where every practice is viewed holistically and every object has its own agency.
 

We hope you are able to join us for one or both of these upcoming events
 
Your Sydney Chapter Co-Chairs
Alex, Genevieve and Candace

We are excited to announce that this year we are hosting an online lecture to mark our AGM.

• When: Wednesday June 24th, 5pm (AEST)
• Where:  Online presentation via Zoom (log in details provided on RSVP)
• RSVP essential: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/for-love-and-money-cults-of-aphrodite-for-ancient-greek-mariners-tickets-106694247366

 
Abstract: Aphrodite was a widely-worshiped ancient Greek goddess, with shrines all around the Mediterranean Sea. Modern scholarship prioritises her depiction in poetry, nude cult statues and putative Eastern origins, not her everyday cultic significance. Yet she was a patron goddess for sailors and courtesans, brides and generals, even whole cities. Key aspects of her network of sanctuaries on harbours and heights, and her controversial connections with prostitution, may best be understood in relation to her role as a patron of ancient Greek mariners. Her cults from Cyprus to Corinth, Eryx to Paestum, clearly developed through travel by sea. Greek, Phoenician and Italian common use of sanctuaries is clear from archaeology, and can clarify ancient comments by Herodotus, Strabo and Pausanias. Offerings made by hopeful or grateful mariners occur at all of her shrines. Maritime Aphrodite’s cult was practiced both at the port and with a view of the sea, with a focus on statues rather than monumental buildings. Aphrodite's network of maritime cults and sanctuaries casts light on many otherwise immaterial rituals of the ancient merchant marine, and the interlocking networks of colonization, trade and religion which linked Magna Graecia with Greece, Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean.