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URL:https://lectures.london/cambridge-university/holding-it-together-makin
 g-maintaining-and-mending-from-the-early-modern-to-the-present/calender.ic
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NAME:Lectures London
X-WR-CALNAME:Lectures London
TIMEZONE-ID:Europe/London
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DTSTAMP:20260621T073414
DTSTART:20260625T090000
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SUMMARY:Holding it Together: Making\, Maintaining and Mending from the Ear
 ly Modern to the Present
LOCATION:Cambridge University: Alison Richard Building
DESCRIPTION:Making things last underpins a plethora of cultural practices 
 – care\, robust-design\, refashioning and waste – all rooted in divers
 e conceptions of endurance. In the early modern period\, things were somet
 imes made to last by manipulating material characteristics\; across Europe
  and Asia examples range from the pursual of hardness and heat resistance 
 in the formulation of new recipes for varnish and porcelain\, to the manip
 ulation of natural dyes and their chemistry to find colours resistant to l
 aundering and sunlight. Other practices sought endurance by anticipating l
 ater care and maintenance\; silver objects\, for example\, required regula
 r polishing to guard against the blackening action of oxygen and sulphur\,
  extending their continual making into everyday routine. Today\, making th
 ings last is also an urgent issue. Our societies have become increasingly 
 marked by throw-away cultures\; planned obsolescence and fast fashion have
  fundamentally altered our relationship with material goods. The pressing 
 environmental crisis urges us to find a different model. Despite our unive
 rsal preoccupation with making things last\, we rarely examine how this de
 sire fundamentally shapes how we make\, maintain and mend things\, and the
  timescales over which these practices take place. ‘Holding it Together
 ’\, a two-day symposium taking place in late June 2026\, addresses this 
 gap\, bringing together makers and scholars of material culture to co-crea
 te new and robust concepts of lastingness rooted in both historical unders
 tanding and contemporary practice.
URL;VALUE=URI:http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/whatson/detail.shtml?uid=fd6dd973
 -1cfc-4c31-8036-0ad6628ef821
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