Emilie Sitzia receives Cambridge Visual Culture Visiting Research Fellowship

The Cambridge Visual Culture Visiting Research Fellowship aims to renew and catalyse the study of ‘the visual’ at University of Cambridge by bringing fresh voices and approaches to the University, and to extend visual culture studies into specialisms and fields which are under-represented in Cambridge. 

Emilie will spend time in Autumn/winter 2024 at the University of Cambridge working with The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge communities to develop this research. The museum owns an exceptional collection of rare books, especially illustrated books. The museum and the Cambridge communities also have an outstanding expertise in participatory practice and book conservation as well as an openness to think outside the glass box.

About the project

An illustrated book is a multi-sensory object. We caress its cover; we smell its pages as we open it; we gaze at its images looking for minute details; sometimes, we take it to bed with us; we even (if we live dangerously) bring it in our bath. Often, illustrated books are our very first exposure to visual culture. They are also our first experience of collective reading and narrative togetherness. We have an attachment to illustrated books like we have with no other objects of our visual cultures.

Yet, when we exhibit the rarest and most beautiful of illustrated books, we mostly lock them up into glass coffins.

This project aims to explore ideas and develop alternative participatory, social and sensory ways to exhibit illustrated rare book collections. Taking into account conservation issues, this project wants to restore sensory qualities to the book within an exhibition context, to reconnect the visual aspect of illustrated book exhibition with its social aspect, and with our other senses.