TIM Free Lecture Series
"Little Island - Big Ideas" Lecture Series
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***POSTPONED***
Due to concerns around Coronavirus, our March lecture is postponed until further notice.
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March 28th
Little Pieces of China:
Chinese Villages at the GGIE and Other Fairs
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The Chinese Village at the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition was the latest in a series of presentations of Chinese life at American exhibitions dating back to 1893 in
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Chicago. Many celebrated China as a brilliant and ancient civilization; some were less laudatory. Treasure Island’s village was created by San Francisco's Chinatown merchants to remedy the lack of a Chinese national pavilion, and supported by Chinese Americans across the country. How accurately and how effectively did this and other Chinese simulacra engage and educate westerners about the life and culture of the Middle Kingdom, and influence attitudes toward Chinese Americans?
Speaker: Prof. Jean-François Staszak, Director, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Geneva
Lectures start at 10:30 am in the lobby of Building One, and are free of charge. Treasure Island can be reached by public bus, car or bicycle.
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These ongoing talks on the past, present and future of Treasure Island cover topics including Treasure and Yerba Buena Island history, San Francisco world’s fairs, naval history, current island activities and redevelopment, island sustainability, the Golden Gate International Exposition, and art and architecture on Treasure Island.
Construction Notice: As redevelopment progresses, street and transit access and parking will be in flux. Here are current directions, but they will change from time to time.
Driving, as you approach Building One don't turn right at the detour sign, but go straight past the sign into the parking lot. The Muni 25 stop has been reinstated on Clipper Cove Way across from Building One (inbound) and on Treasure Island Road at the Clipper Cove Way intersection (outbound to San Francisco).
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See the Directions page for maps and directions to the safer new westbound Bay Bridge on-ramp.
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The “Little Island, Big Ideas” lecture series is presented with support from the Treasure Island Development Authority and funding from the Historic Preservation Fund of the City and County of San Francisco, Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
Coming Lectures
March 28 Little Pieces of China
Chinese Villages at the GGIE and Other Fairs
The Chinese Village at the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition was the latest in a series of presentations of Chinese life at American exhibitions dating back to 1893 in Chicago. Many celebrated China as a brilliant and ancient civilization; some were less laudatory. Treasure Island’s village was created by San Francisco's Chinatown merchants to remedy the lack of a Chinese national pavilion, and supported by Chinese Americans across the country. How accurately and how effectively did this and other Chinese simulacra engage and educate westerners about the life and culture of the Middle Kingdom, and influence attitudes toward Chinese Americans? Speaker: Prof. Jean-François Staszak, Director, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Geneva
April 25 The Goddess Who Moved to the Peninsula
The Fair’s Pacifica and Her Namesake City
Speaker: Stephen Johnson, Pacifica Historical Society
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May 16 Native American Art at the GGIE
A Mini-Seminar
New Visualization of Native Art: Navajo Demonstrators at the GGIE
The Golden Gate International Exposition was one of many expositions that promoted the virtues of American industrial progress. While still maintaining many colonial aspirations, the San Francisco fair also proved central to the dissemination of ideology that was fundamental to New Deal Indian policy. However, the role of Native Americans and the representation of their respective cultures was distinctly different from previous expositions—a shift that reflected IACB efforts and New Deal Indian policy. Focusing on the Navajo Weavers gallery, as well as on Navajo silverwork and sandpainting demonstrators, this presentation will contextualize and complicate the participation of Navajo artisans at the GGIE. Speaker: Hadley Jensen, Postdoctoral Fellow in Museum Anthropology, Bard Graduate Center/American Museum of Natural History
America’s First Artists: Native American Art at the San Francisco World’s Fair, 1939–40
The Golden Gate International Exposition was the last great American world’s fair to prominently feature Native American art and culture. The major venue was an exhibit in the Federal Building, organized by the Department of the Interior’s Indian Arts and Craft Board. While this influential display is fairly well-known, less familiar are the similar display curated by Berkeley anthropologist Samuel Barrett in 1940, and the Northwest Coast exhibit in the Fine Arts Pavilion, curated by Erna Gunther of the University of Washington. In different venues, Native American objects were glossed as anthropological specimen, commodity, and art. This talk will contextualize the IACB exhibit as just one component of a larger effort of positioning San Francisco as a hemispheric Native American site, particularly in relation to the peoples of the Pacific Rim, the fair’s official theme. Speaker: Ira Jacknis, Head of Research and Information, Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley,
This is the most recent lecture series postcard.
Click here for the archive of all flyers from March 2013.
Click here for titles and abstracts of all lectures.
