Events

This page features upcoming and past events, ranging from public lectures, workshops, exhibitions and seminars.

Background image: Otto Marseus van Schrieck, Forest Floor with Thistle and Snake (detail), c. 1665. Oil on canvas, 68,4 x 53 cm. Cat. nr. 3070. Mecklenburgisches Landesmuseum Schwerin

Upcoming events

Event, Sprig Congress

Congress KNHG: Ruiken, Proeven, Doen

13 April 2023: KNHG spring congress on peformative methods in historical reserach. Prof. Dr. Eric Jorink will take part in a round table discussion on re-making, re-doing methods and Visualizing the Unknown at the Dutch ‘Openlucht Museum’ in Arnhem.

Besides the round table, Eric will give a workshop together with microphotographer and microscopist Wim van Egmond, titled:  Rebuild (and work) with a 17th-century microscope.

Onvoorstelbaar, Leeuwenhoek exhibition, Rijksmuseum Boerhave

Exhibition Rijksmuseum Boerhaave: Onvoorstelbaar/Unimaginable

17 April 2023: Opening Van Leeuwenhoek exhibition Onvoorstelbaar/unimaginable, at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave

Book Presentation 'Veel, Klein en Curieus'

20 April 2023: Book Presentation at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave of: Veel, Klein en Curieus, de wereld van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). A biography of the seventeenth-century Delft microscopist by historian, science journalist and team member of Visualizing the Unknown, Geertje Dekkers.

Past events

NICAS logo met zeventiende eeuwse tekeningen eierstokken van de bijenkoningin door Swammerdam

Colloquim NICAS

16 March 2023: Colloquim organised by NICAS where our PhD Student Ellen Pater will discuss the artistic skill and knowledge as well as the artistic processes involved in the production of early modern images made with the microscope by taking Johannes Swammerdam as a case study

Opening: Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek-year 2023 and launch 'Door de lens van Antoni' project

24 November 2022: Opening, Trippenhuis, KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam)
Organised by: Huygens Institute (KNAW), Shoreline Productions, KNAW Akademie van Kunsten
Made possible by: Huygens Institute, NWO-project Visualising the Unknown, Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging voor Microbiologie / Stichting Microcanon & de Microbenclub, Nederlands Instituut voor Biologie, Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, TU Delft, Wim van Egmond Microphotography, Shoreline Productions

Dürer, Stag Beetle, Creepy Crawies

Crawly Creatures in Context. Observing, Representing, and how to Make Sense of Them?

27 October 2022: Workshop, Artis Library Amsterdam
Filippo Buonanni, The anatomy of a mosquito wing in Micrographia Curiosa, 1703

“Images and Institutions” The Visual Culture of Early Modern Scientific Societies

International Workshop in Rome: 14-16 September 2022

Organised by: Dr. Matthijs Jonker (Head of Art History and Cultural Studies at the Dutch Royal Institute in Rome) and Dr. Katherine Reinhart (Binghamton University)

Made possible by: Dutch Royal institute in Rome (NL), Max Planck – Bibliotheca Hertziana (DE/IT), Accademia dei Lincei (IT), Society for Renaissance Studies (UK), Huizinga Institute (NL) and Association for Art History (UK)

Stelluti, Bees, Melissographia, Bee Anatomy, Barberini Bee, Barberini crest

Workshop: Visual and Material Culture of Microscopy in Seventeenth-Century Italy

22-24 June 2022

International workshop at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History
Organized by Sietske Fransen (BHMPI) and Tiemen Cocquyt (Rijksmuseum Boerhaave).

Taking as as a starting point the drawings and printed images that were created by seventeenth-century microscopists and their artists. In a conversation between experts on seventeenth-century lenses (in microscopes and telescopes), early modern scientific instruments, epistemic images before and after the introduction of the microscope, the Italian microscopic networks, and drawing as an observational art, this workshop aims at understanding better the visual strategies of depicting the previously unseen and unknown.

Sietske Fransen, Woudscoten, Gewina, Keynote Lecture

Keynote Lecture: Contested Observations: Seventeenth-Century Microscopy and the Challenge to See the Same

18-19 June 2022

At the 9th Gewina Meeting of Historians of Science in the Low Countries, Sietske Fransen (BH-MPI) gave a keynote lecture on seventeenth-century microscopy. Focussing on how microscopists communicated about and compared their observations, how different magnifying instruments were made and the visualization of the micro-world.

Jan Swammerdam; Butterfly; Herziana Seminar

Research Seminar: Otto Marseus van Schrieck, Johannes Swammerdam and Paolo Boccone: Visual Strategies and Communicating Science

23 February 2022
This seminar was given at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte. After introducing Visualizing the Unknown, visiting professor Eric Jorink focussed on the interaction between various artistic and scientific strategies, as well as Dutch-Italian relations around 1670.
Johannes Swammerdam, The eye of a bee in Icones operis Bibliae naturae, 1675. Drawing. Detail from Fol. 21r. BPL 126 B. Leiden University Library

Kick-off: Visualizing the Unknown. Scientific Observation, Representation and Communication in 17th-century Science and Society

1 October 2021

Launch of the NWO-project Visualizing the Unknown. Videos of all presentations available via: Learn More.