Past Events
& Exhibitions
View recordings of more Radcliffe events on YouTube.
All Events & Exhibitions
Intimate Inequalities
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Frieda L. Miller Fellow Brodwyn Fischer
12 PM ET
Arriving at the Junction of Statistics and Biology: My Journey
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Helen Putnam Fellow Jingyi Jessica Li
12 PM ET
ArtsThursdays: The Moving Parts (&)
Gallery Events • The Moving Parts (&) Gallery SeriesVisit Mary Lum’s exhibition The Moving Parts (&) during ArtsThursdays extended gallery hours.
5 PM ET
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
When Wounds Travel: Chronicles of War Biology East of the Mediterranean
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Hrdy Fellow Omar Dewachi
12 PM ET
Analyzing Earth’s “Fine Prints”: High-Resolution Geological Records Inform Near Future Climate Change
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellow Hong Yang
12 PM ET
The Heisenberg Variations: Imagination, Invention, and Uncertainty
Lectures • Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in the Arts and HumanitiesHow do we create art? How do we become ourselves? In this year’s Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in the Arts and Humanities, Jennifer Finney Boylan considers the way revision and reinvention serve—not only as necessary aspects of the creative process—but also as a model for the way we live our lives, and create ourselves, through trial and error.
4 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Wiring Gaia in the Anthropocene: “Smart Earth” Digital Technologies and Environmental Futures
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Matina S. Horner Distinguished Visiting Professor Karen Bakker
12 PM ET
Mary Lum: The Moving Parts (&) Opening Event
LecturesIn this opening discussion for the newly commissioned exhibition The Moving Parts (&), the artist Mary Lum will engage in a wide-ranging conversation with the art historian Steven Nelson.
4 PM ET
Quartette: Stories from the Lives of Four Women Jazz Musicians—Maxine Sullivan, Velma Middleton, Melba Liston, and Shirley Scott
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellow Maxine Gordon
12 PM ET
Chilean Constitutional Reform: Mother Nature, Mapuche Women, and Decolonial Perspectives
Lectures • Rama S. Mehta LectureHarvard Radcliffe Institute is pleased to welcome Elisa Loncón Antileo to deliver the Rama S. Mehta Lecture for 2022–2023. In 2021, Loncón was elected as one of the representatives of the Mapuche people to the Chilean Constitutional Convention, and was then named the Convention’s first president (July 2021–January 2022).
4 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Conference: The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America
Conferences & SymposiaHarvard Radcliffe Institute will hold a major public conference to probe the complex and unpredictable ways that Roe v. Wade and its aftermath shaped the United States and the world beyond it for nearly half a century. The existential issue of abortion—and the galvanizing impact of Roe in particular—transformed the nation’s politics and public policy and its social movement energies, as well as the operations of the courtroom and the clinic.
9:15 AM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
The Age of Roe: Voices from the Front Lines
Conferences & SymposiaThis opening session of the "Age of Roe" conference features speakers with a range of perspectives from the front lines of debates about abortion, birth, and birth disparities. Each will tell stories from their work and talk about the work of stories in their own social movement and thought leadership.
7 PM ET
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Understanding Language Survival: Theory, Methods, and Action
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Hilles Bush Fellow Roberto Zariquiey
12 PM ET
Art, Activism, and Climate Change: Conversation with Angélique Kidjo and Vijay Iyer
LecturesHarvard Radcliffe Institute and the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University present a series of virtual programs focusing on the intersection of art, activism and climate change. The second program in the series will feature Angélique Kidjo in conversation with Vijay Iyer.
4 PM ET
Art, Activism, and Climate Change: Conversation with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
LecturesHarvard Radcliffe Institute and the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University present a series of virtual programs focusing on the intersection of art, activism, and climate change. The first program in the series will feature Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
4 PM ET
Exploring the Landscape of Functional Proteins by Computational Design
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Grass Fellow Bruno Correia
12 PM ET
Algorithms for Personalizing Digital Interventions
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Radcliffe Alumnae Professor Susan A. Murphy
12 PM ET
Hurricanes and Breezes: Visualizing Climate Change
Lectures • Climate Change Science Lecture SeriesWhat role can visualization play in understanding and managing climate change? Data analytics experts Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg will discuss a series of projects that visualize and portray climate and weather, and explore issues that these projects have raised.
12 PM ET
Exit Wounds: American Guns, Mexican Lives, and the Vicious Circle of Violence
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Maury Green Fellow Ieva Jusionyte
12 PM ET
Woman, Life, Freedom: Iran’s Women-Led Protests in Context
LecturesThroughout history, Iranian women have participated in national uprisings. In 2022, they are leading them, taking direct aim at the regime’s repressive treatment of women and girls, while the Iranian government is reacting with lethal force to attempt to end the protests. Join us for an examination of the history and contemporary political and social conditions giving rise to current events as well as a discussion of how the situation may evolve.
12 PM ET
Replicating the Hustle: Institutionalizing Justice-Impacted Brilliance and Development in Community Organizing
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Joint HRI–HLS Visiting Practitioner Brittany White
12 PM ET
Beyond “Fair Harvard”: Perspectives from Black Alumni
LecturesIn this panel discussion, Black Radcliffe and Harvard alumni from different generations will explore and celebrate stories of resistance, excellence, resilience, and change-making from while they were students and after graduation.
4 PM ET
The New Economy
Fellows' PresentationA presentation from 2022–2023 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow Gabrielle Calvocoressi
12 PM ET
And Then COVID Came: Supporting Inclusive Student Life at Harvard University
Radcliffe on the RoadJoin us for a conversation exploring the Harvard student experience in the wake of a national reckoning over long-standing racial inequalities, a global pandemic, and sustained economic uncertainty. We will unpack the lessons this unprecedented period holds for the University as it reckons with its ties to slavery and seeks to better support historically underserved students.
7 PM ET
212 E 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
Exhibition Opening Discussion: The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America
LecturesIn this opening discussion for the exhibition The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America, curator Mary Ziegler will engage in conversation with Andrew R. Lewis and Kimberly Mutcherson.
4 PM ET
Mindfulness Drawing Workshop with Cara Bean
Exhibition • Gallery Events • Drawing Us Together Gallery SeriesJoin cartoonist Cara Bean for an in-person and hands-on visual thinking and mindfulness workshop. Participants will review the basics of communicative and idea-generating drawing and develop skills needed to doodle as a form of play and problem solving.
11 AM ET
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Thinking with Comics with Dan Nott
Exhibition • Gallery Events • Drawing Us Together Gallery SeriesJoin comics educator and cartoonist Dan Nott for an all-ages drawing workshop exploring visual metaphor and the unique power of combining words and pictures. Nott will provide an overview of his work and artistic process, and facilitate an activity on using basic drawing to depict complicated ideas and experiences.
2 PM ET
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Exhibition: The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America
ExhibitionThe Age of Roe exhibition examines the political, cultural, and societal landscape of reproductive and women’s rights in America. It reevaluates the legacy of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision through the work of those who have defined the debate about reproduction in the past five decades and uplifts stories of women, people of color, and communities that have been affected by the ruling.
through Saturday, March 4, 2023
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
The Quarantine Public Library with Tracy Honn and Katie Garth
Exhibition • Gallery Events • Drawing Us Together Gallery SeriesQuarantine Public Library is a repository of one-page books made by artists, free for anyone to download, print, and assemble—to keep or give away. Tracy Honn and Katie Garth will present their collaborative project and talk about its origins, reception, and outcomes, as well as their approach and collection curation.
12 PM ET
Drawing Us Together: Gallery Tours with Curator Meg Rotzel
Exhibition • Gallery EventsJoin curator Meg Rotzel for a tour of the exhibition Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics. Learn about the topics raised in the exhibition and how comics are capable of telling stories across time, experience, and identity; and create your own zine.
through Wednesday, November 9, 2022
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics
ExhibitionThis interactive exhibition—anchored by wall-sized graphics from the Center for Cartoon Studies’ graphic guides to the US healthcare system and democracy—includes a library of over 80 comics spanning the genres of memoir, historical narrative, graphic novel, and informational guide. The comics included in this exhibition illustrate who has the power to make decisions about our lives and our health, and how those decisions affect individuals and communities over time, often determined by class, race, gender, and zip code.
through Saturday, December 17, 2022
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity
ExhibitionThroughout the 20th century, the marketing and design of menstrual products often stigmatized menstruation as an unmentionable bodily affliction. Menstruation was wrapped in euphemism: that time of the month, a weakness, a nuisance. “Feminine hygiene” products offered sanitation, invisibility, and freedom—but at what cost? Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity shows how marketing and social norms around menstruation create a cultural construct with power to shape people’s lives.
through Friday, September 30, 2022
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Gala Porras-Kim: Precipitation for an Arid Landscape
ExhibitionDuring her 2019–2020 fellowship at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Gala Porras-Kim researched how items from the Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá, a Maya site in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, arrived in the collections of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Precipitation for an Arid Landscape grows out of that research, presenting new work that explores how sacred objects may continue to perform their original functions once they enter museum collections and are subject to institutional paradigms of classification, conservation, and display.
through Thursday, June 30, 2022
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Elect/Ability: Pride, Prejudice, and the Female Candidate
ExhibitionToday’s American political landscape showcases a diversity of strong female candidates, the culmination of a proud but contested history of women running for political office. This exhibition, drawn from the Schlesinger’s collections, presents a diversity of candidates and the struggles that they continue to face in the press, on the campaign trail, and once in office. Nevertheless, they persist.
through Friday, March 18, 2022
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Brown II
ExhibitionTomashi Jackson combines a practice based in painting and printmaking with archival research in the histories of law, urbanism, and social justice. Her work plumbs the intersections between the formal languages of visual art (color, composition, layering) and the political languages driving the histories of segregation, voting rights, education, and housing in the United States. By activating these shared motifs of art and policy, her work brings the full power of both traditions to bear on historical engagement and critical action.
through Saturday, December 18, 2021
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Accompanied: The Artworks of Marilyn Pappas and Jill Slosburg-Ackerman
ExhibitionThe virtual exhibition Accompanied: The Artworks of Marilyn Pappas and Jill Slosburg-Ackerman presents a pair of artists whose work was transformed by an abiding friendship. Pappas and Slosburg-Ackerman, both fellows at Radcliffe’s Bunting Institute in the 1980s, have sustained a conversation over four decades about artistic endeavor, studio practice, and pedagogy. The artists were members of the founding group of the Brickbottom Artists Building—one of the country’s first artist-developed live-work buildings—and are professors emeriti at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. They have continued to work in adjoining studios for more than 30 years and have taught generations of artists.
through Saturday, January 16, 2021
Seeing Citizens: Picturing American Women’s Fight for the Vote
ExhibitionView this digital exhibition on the Long 19th Amendment Project Portal.
through Thursday, August 26, 2021
EJ Hill: The Lily League
ExhibitionThe Lily League is part of a series of exhibitions referred to by EJ Hill as “lessons.” The Lily League borrows its name from the Black Star calla lily. Initiated during Hill's Radcliffe fellowship year, each of these lessons include a declarative chalkboard.
through Saturday, March 28, 2020
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Dario Robleto: Unknown and Solitary Seas
ExhibitionDario Robleto’s exhibition for the Radcliffe Institute examines the 19th-century origins of the pulse wave as a graphic expression of internal life. He explores the profundity and confusion of this early moment, when ineffable emotional and sensory experiences first became visible as data.
through Saturday, January 18, 2020
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Angela Davis: Freed by the People
ExhibitionNo single person sits more squarely at the intersection of transnational struggles for freedom than the controversial political activist and pioneering philosopher Angela Yvonne Davis. Her arrest, incarceration, and trial formed one of the most widely debated legal cases in world history. Because she sparked worldwide movements that changed the 20th century, Davis was “freed by the people” well before her trial came to an end.
through Monday, March 9, 2020
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Pine in the Sand
ExhibitionPine in the Sand tells a story about unpredictable change while highlighting the often overlooked maintenance and infrastructure enlisted to preserve and stabilize the environment.
through Tuesday, February 23, 2021
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Willie Cole: Beauties
ExhibitionWillie Cole’s Beauties are haunting, full-scale prints made from crushed and hammered ironing boards, each named after a woman from the artist’s family and cultural history. Cole has used irons and ironing as central motifs in his work for 30 years, evoking everything from African masks to slave ship diagrams to the routines of domestic servitude. In this special installation, the gallery will be lined wall to wall with the Beauties. Standing silent—like sentinels, tombstones, shrouds, or windows—the prints will open a space for confronting anew the whole range of often contradictory energies running through them: resistance and oppression, beauty and violence, labor and forbearance.
through Saturday, June 29, 2019
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Clarissa Tossin: Future Fossil
ExhibitionClarissa Tossin RI ’18 expands on her fellowship project with a newly commissioned exhibition that considers the ecology of an uncertain future. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction trilogy Xenogenesis (1989), in which the Amazon becomes the site for a new civilization of alien-human hybrids, Tossin speculates on a postapocalyptic world following ecological collapse. Pairing DIY plastic recycling techniques with the materials and practices of Amazonian aesthetic traditions, she highlights the contemporary footprint left in the geological sedimentation of the earth. These new works consider indigenous knowledge in relationship to the environment while also resembling ruins of a world yet to come.
through Saturday, March 16, 2019
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Anna Von Mertens: Measure
ExhibitionAnna Von Mertens uses the structures of quilting and drawing to examine the frontiers of human understanding. In this exhibition, commissioned for the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Von Mertens explores the life and work of Henrietta Leavitt, one of the women “computers” hired a century ago to study glass-plate astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory. Leavitt searched for patterns among these glassy stars, and her findings provided a unit of measurement for galactic distances and led to our current understanding of the shape of the cosmos. Von Mertens’s meticulous stitches and intricate graphite marks reimagine Leavitt’s patient work, exploring the potency of single, measured actions as units of understanding.
through Saturday, January 19, 2019
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Bouchra Khalili: Foreign Office
ExhibitionThe Radcliffe Institute presents a solo exhibition featuring a selection of elements of Bouchra Khalili’s work from Foreign Office, consisting of a digital film of the same title, a group of photographs, and a silkscreen print, titled The Archipelago. The exhibition’s combination of artistic elements suggests an alternative historiography of utopian movements—working in concert, they invite reflection on potential gestures of resistance for the present and the future.
through Saturday, April 21, 2018
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Jennifer Bornstein: Feminist Archaeology
ExhibitionFeminist Archaeology, an exhibition created by Jennifer Bornstein RI ’15, is an interdisciplinary art project consisting of an original video projection with accompanying prints and sculptures. The exhibition explores various strains of feminism that the artist has experienced both personally and through her research and that have been somewhat at odds with one another over time.
through Saturday, January 20, 2018
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Altered Gazes
ExhibitionAltered Gazes foregrounds women as creators and consumers of countercultural content. In addition to materials from our growing collection of comics, zines, erotica and pornography, and other alternative publications, the exhibition features materials from the Ludlow Santo Domingo Collection, one of the largest gatherings of underground, alternative, and pop-culture publications in the world.
through Friday, January 19, 2018
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
100+ Years at 73 Brattle
ExhibitionA public art installation by John Wang ’16, winner of the biennial Radcliffe Institute Public Art Competition
through Friday, March 1, 2019
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Xaviera Simmons: Overlay
ExhibitionOverlay, an exhibition created by the multimedia artist Xaviera Simmons for Harvard Radcliffe Institute, uses text-based video, photographs, and soundscapes to feature characters rooted in stories and historical narratives found in the archives of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
through Saturday, July 1, 2017
8 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Playing Fair? Title IX at 45
ExhibitionOver the past four decades, the phrase “Title IX” has become practically synonymous with women’s sports. The events leading up to Title IX’s passage in 1972 and the struggle ever since to figure out how to implement the law fairly demonstrate how athletics became part of the broader political and cultural struggles of contemporary American life.
through Saturday, September 16, 2017
3 James Street
Cambridge, MA 02138