Dr Larkman is a retired Oxford biologist who has been chairman of OOS for the last 5 years. His main interest is the precipitous decline in the UK’s small, seed-eating farmland birds over the last 50 years.

The art market is one of the most visible, yet least understood industries in the world. And it is in the midst of a digital transformation that is redefining what and how art is transacts every day.

During this talk, Sotheby’s Senior Vice President of Data & Strategy, Edouard Benveniste gives an introduction to the art market with a focus on how data and emerging technologies are shaking up an industry long known for its opacity.

Benveniste, has spent the past decade at the world’s leading auction houses in roles spanning sales and technology, will share lessons from the transformation of the art world that can apply to any industry at the time of disruptive innovation.

Schedule:
17:15 – Registration opens
17:45 – Event starts
18:45 – Drinks reception (optional)
19:45 – Event close
About the event

The seminar is open for anyone to attend
Spaces are limited and tickets are non-transferable so registration is essential so please use the Register button above to confirm your attendance
Please note once the main room is full you will be directed to an overflow room to watch the a livestream of the event, so please arrive early to avoid disappointment

For this event, 12 artists from all over the country will be presenting work that they have been making as part of the Sound Diaries open call.

The presenting artists are:

Richard Bentley, Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, Aisling Davis, Atilio Doreste, Marlo De Lara, Beth Shearsby, Kathryn Tovey, Jacek Smolicki, James Green, Lucia Hinojosa, Sena Karahan, Fi.Ona

Sound Diaries expands awareness of the roles of sound and listening in daily life. The project explores the cultural and communal significance of sounds and forms a research base for projects executed both locally and Internationally, in Beijing, Brussels, Tallinn, Cumbria and rural Oxfordshire.

The ability to accurately identify and interpret Track and Sign rests on a body of traditional knowledge that previous generations of naturalists would have regarded as fundamental. Sadly, now it is largely unknown and untaught, but with the upsurge of Citizen Science, it is perhaps more relevant than ever.

Crocodiles once roamed the Arctic, during the Eocene about 50 million years ago. Polar regions were lush and warm. Greenhouse gas concentrations were higher than today, but at most about 4 times higher – not enough, according to current climate models, to have warmed the Arctic sufficiently. Something appears to be missing in current models to account for the warmth of the past.

The likely culprits are clouds, especially the low clouds that cover vast areas of tropical oceans. These clouds cool Earth by reflecting sunlight back to space. It is possible that the cloud cooling may have been absent or strongly diminished in past greenhouse climates, raising questions about our climate future. To predict our climate future more accurately, breakthroughs in the modeling of clouds and in the accuracy of climate predictions are needed. They are now within reach, thanks to advances in computing and Earth observations from space and our ability to fuse models with massive amounts of data.

Sculpt, Mould, Cast: The Art of Cast Making
THREE DAY WORKSHOP AT THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

Follow in the footsteps of ancient Greek and Roman sculptors to create your own pint-sized plaster statue. You’ll be given special entry to the hidden Lower Cast Gallery, a space not normally open to the public, to gain inspiration from the full Ashmolean collection. Under the guidance of an expert artist, you’ll produce a sketch of your piece, then transform your creation from pencil to clay before casting it in plaster. No previous artistic experience necessary.

Wed 25 Sep, Wed 9 & 23 Oct, 10.30am–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Learning Studio
With Francesca Shakespeare (Artist) and Abbey Ellis (Researcher)

Tickets: £170/£160/£150 – Full/Concession/Members

BOOK ONLINE: https://www.ashmolean.org/event/sculpt-mould-cast-course

Slime moulds thrive in damp woodlands and normally spread over rotting logs eating bacteria and fungi. They are also unusual in being single giant cells that show remarkably sophisticated behaviour considering their humble form. This talk presents a little vignette of the science behind these curious beasts and how it has led to better understanding of other networked systems, and even the origins of civilisation.

We cannot end poverty without ending energy poverty. Ever since the world’s first power plants whirred to life in 1882, we have seen how electricity is the lynchpin for development in all of its forms.

Manufacturing and industrial productivity, agriculture and food security, nutrition, hygiene, water, public health, education, even community engagement, in other words, daily life in a modern economy, demand access to reliable energy.

And yet despite significant progress over nearly 140 years, more than 800 million people around the world live without access to electricity, and hundreds of millions more struggle with unreliable or unaffordable service. Families are deprived of the means to labour productively and their quality of life and status in extreme poverty goes unchanged.

We need urgently to fast-track sustainable power solutions, investments, and partnerships across the globe to catalyze an energy transformation and accelerate sustainable, reliable and modern electrification for economic development.

The Ashmolean Museum is treasured by local people and visitors alike for its eclectic and fascinating mix of exhibits and special exhibitions, all set within a superb building. Xa Sturgis reflects on five eventful years as the Director of the world-famous museum.

Globally acclaimed Artist and Social Historian Nicola Green will discuss her role as witness to some of the most seminal events of our times. Green will share her experiences gaining remarkable access to iconic figures from the worlds of religion, politics, and culture, including Pope Francis, President Obama and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Green will discuss the intersection of art, heritage and power, and how she captured this in her seminal works In Seven Days… and Encounters.

Art at Oxford Saïd:
A programme that explores the interconnections between art and business and sets out to delight and inspire the School community and reflect our values.

Event Schedule:
17:15 – Registration opens
17:45 – Event starts
18:45 – Drinks reception
19:45 – Close

About the Speaker:
Nicola Green is an artist with a career spanning 25 years. Her work combines painting, drawing, collage, silk screen printing, gilding, photography and textile design. Green is a powerful story-teller known for her legacy and heritage art works, and she has established an international reputation for her ambitious projects that change perceptions about identity and power; exploring themes of race, spirituality, gender, sexuality and leadership.

Driven by her belief in the power of the visual image to communicate important human stories, Green frequently assumes the role of witness to momentous occasions taking place across the globe. Inspired by her own mixed-heritage children and multi-faith family, she is committed to creating and preserving religious, social, and cultural heritage for future generations.

Green gained unprecedented access to Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign producing her acclaimed work In Seven Days… She co-founded, directed and exhibited in the Diaspora Pavilion, an initiative delivering mentoring and professional development for emerging artists and curators from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds. Green’s most recent project Encounters is a ground-breaking exhibition of over fifty portraits of the world’s most prominent religious leaders. Encounters is accompanied by a significant academic book Encounters: The Art of Interfaith Dialogue with essays by leading global scholars, theologians and art historians.

About the event:
The seminar is open for anyone to attend
Spaces are limited and tickets are non-transferable so registration is essential so please use the Register button above to confirm your attendance
Please note once the main room is full you will be directed to an overflow room to watch the a livesream of the event, so please arrive early to avoid disappointment

Photography and filming may take place at Saïd Business School for promotional purposes. This is especially likely and normal at our events where live streams and instant social media posts can be part of the event delivery. Wherever possible we will let you know when photography and filming is to be active via in-venue signage and event communications. For individuals who may wish to opt out of image capture at an event please contact corporate.events@sbs.ox.ac.uk.

The poppy as a recurring image in poetry and art, and as a symbol of wartime loss, is powerfully resonant in our culture. Dr Andrew Lack, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Biology at Oxford Brookes University, will talk about the poppy plant and its ancient and more recent historical associations.

In this book talk the Author, Carl Benedikt Frey, will discuss how the Industrial Revolution was a defining moment in history, but how few grasped its enormous consequences at the time. Now that we are in the midst of another technological revolution how can the lessons of the past can help us to more effectively face the present?

This talk will be followed by a book sale, signing and drinks reception. All welcome.

Visual Artist Dr Clair Chinnery interprets the ‘shapeshifting’ capabilities of human bodies as they emerge, grow, mature and die, informed by the physical materials left behind when such changes occur. With Digital Developer Gerard Helmich she has produced giant 3D printed sculptures of infant milk teeth and has also collaborated with the Parkinson’s Brain Bank at Imperial College London, working with microscopic images of diseased neurons. Discover how this ‘autoethnographic’ project reaches forwards and backwards in time, considering the irretrievable pasts and unknowable futures of ‘intergenerational’ experiences.

This is the 100 year journey to fusion: an award-winning documentary that follows the story of dedicated fusion scientists working to build a small sun on Earth, which would unleash perpetual, cheap, clean energy for mankind.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A session featuring fusion researchers.

UPP Members receive a further £2 off listed prices.

This film is rated 15.

How people become unrecognisable depends on who’s viewing. Contouring, volumised lashes and a smokey eye change a look, but can it trick facial recognition software? Explore makeup artistry from Charlotte Tilbury and City of Oxford College to see how much faces can change. People are more than just selfie, so join Niki Trigoni from the University of Oxford Cyber Physical System Group for the latest in multimodal recognition that can combines faces with voice and walking gait to help spot the whole person.

Bernard Tucker Memorial Lecture – Joint with Oxford Ornithological Society

Michael Obersteiner will present new insights from co-producing a set of new sustainability scenarios.

Major sectoral transitions will be presented to achieve development targets in line with improved ecosystem and human health. He will conclude with an outlook on new ways to socialise findings from such global assessments.

This talk is part of the Oxford Martin School Lecture Series ‘Food futures: how can we safeguard the planet’s health, and our own?’

Blackwell’s are delighted to be hosting a celebration in honour of the launch of Matthew Rice’s beautiful new book, Oxford.

Oxford is one of the jewels of European architecture, much loved and much visited. The city offers an unparallelled collection of the best of English building through the centuries. Matthew Rice’s Oxford is a feast of delightful watercolour illustrations and an informed and witty text, explaining how the city came into being and what to look out for today.

While the focus is on architectural detail, Rice also describes how the city has been shaped by its history, most of all by generations of patrons who had the education and the resources to commission work from the greatest architects and builders of their day, an astonishing range of which still stands.

More than anywhere else in England, it is possible in Oxford to take in the history of English architecture simply by walking today’s streets, lanes, parks and meadows.

This is a free event, but please register if you would like to attend. The evening will include a short speech from Matthew Rice, followed by a chance to buy the book, get it signed and then enjoy the evening with the refreshments provided. For more information, please call our Customer Service Desk on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

Geographers have long been interested in the spaces brought into being by the internet. In the early days of the Web, digital technologies were seen as tools that could bring a heterotopic cyberspace into being: a place beyond space de-tethered from the material world.

More recent framings instead see digital geographies as always-augmented, hybrid, and ontogenetic: integrally embedded into everyday life.

Against that backdrop, Professor Mark Graham will present findings from three large research projects about digital platforms. First, a large-scale digital mapping project that looks at how digital inequalities can become infused into our urban landscapes. Second, a study about the livelihoods of platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, early results from a new action research project (the Fairwork Foundation) designed to improve the quality of platform jobs.

In each case, the talk explores why understanding the ways that platforms command digital geographies is a crucial prerequisite for envisioning more equitable digital futures.

Please register via the link provided. This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.

A Taste of Pompeii, with Sally Grainger
Evening Talk and Tasting
Tue 29 Oct, 6.30–9.30pm

Join author of The Classical Cookbook Sally Grainger as she shares her knowledge of classical Roman recipes adapted for the contemporary cook, painting a vibrant picture of wining and dining in the ancient world. Having whetted your appetite, enjoy a tasting array of dipping sauces in the ‘Taberna Ashmolean’.

Tickets are £35 each.

Entry is via the Front Door. Doors open 6pm, lecture at 6.30 pm.

Dr David Nabarro, former Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Food Security and Nutrition, will give a talk on what implications there will be for the planet and us in linking nature, food and the climate.

Please register via the link provided. Followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

Sarah Weir OBE, Chief Executive, Design Council, will lecture on ‘Designing the Future: Who is doing it?’ She will consider the question of what design is – a mindset and skillset; critical thinking and creativity combined; much more than aesthetics.

The Lady English Lecture Series marks the College’s continuing commitment to the education and advancement of women and promotes the contributions made by women to the University and to public life more generally.

Blackwell’s is thrilled to be welcoming Erling Kagge to discuss his new book ‘Philosophy for Polar Explorers’.

Synopsis
Erling Kagge was the first man in history to reach all of the Earth’s poles by foot – the North, the South, and the summit of Everest. In ‘Philosophy for Polar Explorers’ he brings together the wisdom and expertise he has gained from the expeditions that have taken him to the limits of the earth, and of human endurance.

This is the essential guide to the art of exploration. In sixteen meditative but practical lessons – from cultivating an optimistic outlook, to getting up at the right time, to learning to find focus and comfort in solitude – Erling Kagge reveals what survival in the most extreme conditions can teach us about how to lead a meaningful life. Wherever we may be headed.

Erling Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who was the first in history to reach the ‘three poles’ – North, South and the summit of Everest. He now lives in Oslo where he runs a publishing house. He is the author of multiple books, including ‘Silence’, which is published in 38 languages, and ‘Walking’.

Tickets for this event are £5. Doors will open at 6.45pm when there will be a small bar available to purchase drinks. For more information, please contact our Customer Service Desk on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

A growing middle class in the developing world, as well as increasing concerns about the healthfulness, environmental footprint and inhumaneness of conventional livestock production have given rise to neo-Malthusian concerns about how to address what seems insatiable demand for protein.

While some have doubled down on calls for reducing meat consumption, so far the most visible response has been a huge wave of innovation in a variety of what are now being called “alternative proteins.” Designed to capture the “flexitarian” market, these include insect-based foods, protein-rich “superfoods,” simulated plant-based meat and dairy substitutes, and cellular/bioengineered meat.

Their rapid development begs two crucial questions, however. How did protein become the macronutrient of concern to begin? Will protein’s new substantiations be any more nutritious and ecological than that which it substitutes? In this talk, Guthman will elaborate on what is being done in the name of protein and provide provisional answers to these questions.

Please register via the link provided.

The Classical Art Research Centre (CARC) welcome Oxford University’s own Dr Llewelyn Morgan to give the 2019 Gandhara Connections Lecture on ‘Heracles’ Track to the Indus: Ancients and Moderns in the Swat Valley’. Dr Morgan is Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literature and author of The Buddhas of Bamiyan (2012), which reflects his longstanding interest in Graeco-Roman connections with Central Asia and India.

All are welcome to attend and places are free, but please book by emailing us: carc@classics.ox.ac.uk

Plants & Food Culture in Roman Britain
Wed 20 Nov, 1–2pm

Institute of Archaeology, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford
With Alexandra Livarda, ICAC, Tarragona

At our Roman Discussion Forum research seminars you can join experts in the field of archaeology and conservation on new discoveries and ideas arising from our current exhibition, Last Supper in Pompeii. The events are organised in association with the Roman Discussion Forum at the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology.

Places for these seminars are FREE, but places are first-come, first-served, so please arrive early to guarantee your place. It is not possible to book or reserve a place.

www.ashmolean.org/event/roman-discussion-forum-week-6

Poor diet is the leading risk factor for ill health in the UK, carrying more risk than smoking or hypertension.

But in an era where we seem to be constantly bombarded with often conflicting messages about our diets, is all this information actually making us any healthier? How can we cut through media hysteria and use the science to make wise choices about the food we eat and how can the Government make sensible policy decisions to help with the impact our consumption habits have on our health.

Please register via the link provided.

Food Remains from Pompeii:
The Difficulties of Reconstructing Diet
Wed 27 Nov, 1–2pm

With Mark Robinson, University of Oxford

At our Roman Discussion Forum research seminars you can join experts in the field of archaeology and conservation on new discoveries and ideas arising from our current exhibition, Last Supper in Pompeii. The events are organised in association with the Roman Discussion Forum at the University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology.

Places for these seminars are FREE, but places are first-come, first-served, so please arrive early to guarantee your place. It is not possible to book or reserve a place.

www.ashmolean.org/event/roman-discussion-forum-week-7

Plants and photosynthetic microbes have the extraordinary ability to convert light energy to chemical energy and as a consequence, they are the foundation of virtually all ecosystems and all agricultural systems on the planet.

The characteristics that make plants successful in natural ecosystems are often antithetical to agriculture and over 1000s of years we have domesticated plants to make better crops. The molecular genetics revolution of the 20th century has simultaneously provided a means to understand the relationship between plant genes and plant characteristics, and the ability to target and/or select specific genetic changes in plant genomes.

This combination of knowledge and technology opens the possibility for designer crops, and raises interesting questions about the governance of our food system.

Please register via the link provided. Followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.

The talk will provide an overview of dragonflies and their life cycles and habitats as well illustrating a number of species that occur in England including those that are currently colonising from the Continent and increasing in numbers.