Cambridge Exhibitions to Feed Your Curious Curious
With a new term comes a fresh round of exhibitions to feed your artistic curiosity.
Using etched glass, perforated zinc panels and woven cable, Filament/Firmament is a public artwork in the Stone Building of our Main Library by sculptor Ellen Driscoll. It celebrates women’s contributions to Cambridge life. This exhibit is open to all Cambridge Art Association Members.
Local Schools Art Exhibition
This annual exhibition demonstrates the creative talent of students aged 4 – 19 years from local schools. It features artwork in a variety of media including paintings, drawings and sculptures. First, second and third place winners are awarded prizes while honourable mentions are also chosen. This event is open to all public and home-schooled high school students who reside in the area.
The Fitzwilliam Museum is highlighting the role of Black Atlantic histories and legacies in its collections and in Cambridge’s global history through this exciting exhibition. COLOUR harnesses the allure and power of colour to inspire reflection and creativity, across disciplines and cultures.
Inspire explores how young people respond to art at a time when arts education is under threat. Drawing on the success of our Taking One Picture programme and in partnership with AccessArt, this multi-disciplinary project offers teachers new ways to support their pupils to look deeply and thoughtfully at objects in museums, exploring their own ideas and responses.
Filament/Firmament
The firmament is a vast expanse above the Earth’s atmosphere that divides heaven from what lies beyond. It is mentioned 17 times in the Bible, usually as “heaven.” In Genesis, God creates a firmament on day two of creation to separate the waters above from the waters below. The firmament is also referred to by prophets, such as Daniel, who describes the brightness of the heavenly bodies, and in Psalm 150:1, which encourages worshippers to praise God “in the midst of the firmament” of His power.
Filament/Firmament is a permanent public artwork for the new and expanded Cambridge Public Library by artist Ellen Driscoll. Using etched glass, perforated zinc panels, tensioned cable, and textile imagery, this work explores the theme of weaving. The installation knits together the original library structure and the new addition with a sky-lit vertical atrium. Tensioned cables emerge from diagrams etched into opposing walls of glass and are woven throughout the space.
The City of Cambridge Art Collection
Since the early 2000s, exhibition spaces across campus have showcased artwork by local and international artists to Lesley students, faculty, alumni and community members. From a retrospective of Irving Penn photographs to artwork by Temple Grandin and artists with Autism Spectrum Disorder, these exhibitions have opened up opportunities for discussion, exploration and discovery for many.
The Roberts Gallery exhibits renowned visiting artists in addition to exhibiting BFA student work and departmental exhibitions. Its exhibitions have focused on themes of activism and color as well as on the relationship between art and social change.
Green Cambridge and Cambridge Local First (CLF) selected ten Grade 1-5 winners for their City Nature Art Challenge, with the winners receiving gift cards from a local art supply store. Look for around 40 giraffe sculptures to be placed throughout the City in spring 2024 as part of this art trail.
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Known to locals as the ‘Fitz’, this grand neoclassical pile of a museum was built to house the treasured art and library bequeathed by Viscount FitzWilliam of Merrion to Cambridge University in 1816. From a dazzling collection of Old Masters to a trove of Egyptian grave goods, the museum offers up something to please any discerning cultural palate.
The Black Atlantic exhibition is the first of a series to be held at the Fitzwilliam following an inquiry by the University into its links with slavery and empire. It highlights discoveries about the objects the museum possesses, the people who collected them and how their stories connect with global history.
It also includes an installation exploring the intersection between money, power and protest across two and a half centuries. The exhibit uses contemporary works alongside earlier pieces to highlight continuities in the way artists have responded to injustice. It also explores the ways that products harvested by enslaved people became fashionable and central to everyday consumption in Britain.