Transregional Art Histories
Actors, Spaces, Ecologies from the 13th Century to the Present

Research in this unit focuses on the history of art and of aesthetic practices in transregional and ecological perspectives. With a strong interest in the materiality of art and of artistic practices, it investigates works of art in relation to place, space, and environment. Participants study objects and their agency, but also consider their makers, such as artists, craftsmen, and others involved in the production of works of art and in the making of their histories, such as spectators, collectors, scholars, critics, etc. The project is interested in various forms of transregional and transcultural processes, and in translations. Moreover, it analyzes terminologies used to communicate aesthetic processes in a multilinguistic perspective. It invites scholars to develop new strategies in writing the histories of the function, use, display, and collecting of works of art, whether of specific social groups, in religious contexts, or in museums. Research in this unit emphasizes the ecological dimensions of art, going beyond the dichotomies of nature and culture. Within the field of ecological aesthetics, a special interest lies in the history of maritime art in the Italian Peninsula in early Modernity, in both Mediterranean and oceanic dimensions.

The research unit includes a graduate and postdoc fellowship program, collaborative and individual research projects, as well as scientific guests.