U of A's Rome Center Hosts Annual Women in Arts Conference

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Fran Hagstrom, interim associate dean in the Graduate School and International Education, presents at the Annual International Women in Arts Conference held at the university's Rome Center last month.

As part of its expanded mission to serve as an academic and intellectual hub for the University of Arkansas in Europe, the Graduate School and International Education's Rome Center held its second annual International Women in Art Conference from Oct. 19-21 in Rome, Italy.

The conference, which guests could attend in-person or via a virtual livestream, featured more than 30 speakers presenting on female identity and other topics across the spectrum of arts, including music, painting, architecture and literature, in addition to arts patronage by women.

This year's theme, "Women's Legacies in Natural Studies, Health and Liberal Arts," focused on the correlation between women and naturalism from ancient to contemporary times. Topics ranged from horticulture and floral imagery in Rome, naturalist artist Elizabeth Gould, early modern women artists, portrayals of witchcraft in art, and Alice Walton's work to transform the Northwest Arkansas region through art and medicine.

"The second edition of AIWAC conference has been a tremendous success," said Francesco Bedeschi, director of the Rome Center. "I'm very proud of the work of my colleague Consuelo Lollobrigida and the entire team of the UARK Rome Center. The high quality of speakers and the papers which were presented demonstrate the event has reached a very high academic level. The success of the event is the evidence that the UARK Rome Center is becoming a place of excellence for the University in Europe, and it is advancing the international impact of our institution."

The second year of the conference continued the work of Consuelo Lollobrigida, an art history faculty member at the Rome Center, who conceptualized the conference last year after seeing an opportunity to serve not only Rome Center students but the broader arts community in Europe in her area of expertise.

"We were rethinking how we approach our work in the Rome Center, and this was something that was in my expertise, but also core to our mission of serving students," Lollobrigida said. "Our dream is that we can fill the vacuum of conferences on women in the arts and create a stable event for us and for new generations. This may be considered the cornerstone of a new future for the Rome Center."

Lollobrigida organized the conference in collaboration with Adelina Modesti, a world-class arts scholar from the University of Melbourne in Australia. This year, the two wanted to find a publishing house to publish the papers delivered during the conference, in addition to a book series featuring edited books and monographs that involve a submission and peer review process. That led them to Jirki Thibaut, publishing manager at Brepols publishing house. Brepols is now publishing a book series on "Women in the Arts: New Horizons" with Lollobrigida and Modesti as editors.

"As a publishing house, we are very enthusiastic about the idea of a book series on women in the arts," Thibaut said. "It's a very up and coming topic, and a book series can provide a structural platform to disseminate the findings of recent research and steer the direction of the field."

This year, the organizers also created the AIWAC for Mnemosyne Women Prize, which was bestowed this year thanks in part to EnterpriseGirl, a group of female entrepreneurs from a variety of fields out of Campania. They bestowed a work of art — a collage donated to Fran Hagstrom, interim associate dean in the Graduate School and International Education who presented at the conference, as well as a tapestry donated to Vera Fortunati, an Italian pioneer of women and gender studies in the arts.

"Some of the scholars who attended the conference this year are among the most influential and renowned in the field: Patricia Simons, Catherine Powell-Warren, Juliet Simpson, Bruce Edelstein and Liana Cheney, just to name a few," Lollobrigida said. "We are very excited to start working of this year's proceedings and to prepare the topic of the next edition which will be more likely dedicated to music, theatre, spectacles and performances."

Those interested in viewing the conference can watch a recording on the conference website. Those interested in ordering books from the conference can do so on the Brepols website.