SAM Deep Dives with The University of Melbourne

Join Shepparton Art Museum for a new monthly series of talks and conversation, SAM Deep Dives with the University of Melbourne from September to November 2023.

Delving into the themes and ideas of current collection exhibition Dance Me to the End of Love, this series of lectures led by academics and researchers from the University of Melbourne investigates death, technology, poetry and society in three unique conversations prompted by works in the SAM Collection.

This is a dual delivery event. You are welcome to join us either in person at Shepparton Art Museum or online via Zoom.

This event will be recorded.

The Dance Between Art and Science

Speaker: Michael Arnold

Michael Arnold of University of Melbourne's DeathTech team joins SAM with a commentary on Dance Me to the End of Love, delving into the intersectionality of art and science.

Exploring the academic research of DeathTech into death, technology and society and its inclusion of art, Arnold will bring his unique perspective to the exhibition to reflect on the relationship between art and reality.  

Date: Wednesday 27 September 

Time: 6:00pm - 7:00pm

Where: SAM Lin Onus Gallery, Level 1, 530 Wyndham Street, Shepparton or online via Zoom (Zoom details provided following booking)

Price: Free

Michael Arnold is a Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. His ongoing research lies at the intersection of technologies and our society and culture, focusing more recently on technologies in the context of memorialisation, commemoration and the final disposition of the human body.

I am, I am, I am: Artist, Poet, Spy 

Speaker: Dr Tyne Sumner

Examining the SAM collection alongside the lyrics of Leonard Cohen and his contemporaries, Dr Sumner considers the often fraught but also tender, fascinating and ultimately irresolvable tension between an artist’s life, work and the spectacle that is our dance from birth to death.  

Date: Saturday 21 October

Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm

Where: SAM Lin Onus Gallery, Level 1, 530 Wyndham Street, Shepparton or online via Zoom (Zoom details provided following booking)

Price: Free

Dr Tyne Daile Sumner is an interdisciplinary Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts. Her research covers three main areas: literary studies, surveillance, and digital humanities. 

Woman and Child

Speaker: Dr Danny Butt

University of Melbourne senior lecturer Dr Danny Butt focuses on Sam Jinks’ much-loved Woman and Child to prompt a discussion on life, death and gender politics.

How do women bear responsibility for cultural meaning? In a world where “lived experience” is increasingly understood to underpin authentic representation, what can we learn from how Jinks as a male artist stages both woman and child? What does the work’s detailed focus on individual bodies illuminate about Western culture’s philosophy of life and death? Such questions help unfold the complex dynamics animating the sculpture and its continuing power to move audiences.

Date: Thursday 9 November

Time: 6:00pm - 7:00pm

Where: SAM Lin Onus Gallery, Level 1, 530 Wyndham Street, Shepparton or online via Zoom (Zoom details provided following booking)

Price: Free

Dr Danny Butt is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Practice and Co-ordinator of Research in Design and Production at Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne.