XClose

CCHH: China Centre For Health And Humanity

Home
Menu

Imagining Chinese Medicine: Medical illustration from Han tombs to contemporary Comics.

14 March 2014

The final lecture in the SOAS

Lo_EARS.jpg soas.ac.uk/art/events/east-asia-art-archaeology-research-seminars/" target="_blank">East Asia Art & Archaeology Research Seminar series will be given by Dr Vivienne Lo of UCL China Centre for Health and Humanity. She will present her work on Chinese medical illustrations.
Time: Friday, 21st March 2014, 3 pm.
Place: Room B111 (1st floor), Brunei Gallery, SOAS. All welcome.

The SOAS East Asia Art & Archaeology Research Seminar series is convened by Dr Lukas Nickel, ln2@soas.ac.uk

This presentation examines the powerful role of visual culture in the expression of cultural assumptions about the body, healthcare and related practices. It comes at the end of a long-term Wellcome Trust funded project that has brought together 40 scholars from seven different countries around the world in the study of more than 1,400 images (http://wellcomeimages.org, search on "Vivienne Lo").

During the seminar we will look at some of the results of the project and the analyses they permit. I will begin with my own study of medical artefacts and illustrations from the Han dynasty during the period of the formation of a classical tradition. Medical images were deployed at different times in different ways, and for a number of identifiable purposes. They allow us to analyse the text-image relationship, their role in performative contexts or as decorative embellishment and curiosity. A key focus will be the transmission and adaption of illustrations and the reception of Chinese medical illustrations in neighbouring empires, in central Asia, in European medical contexts and in cyberspace. 

Download a flyer.