School of Ruskin

Project Lead: Professor Sandra Kemp

This exhibition explores Ruskin’s belief that learning should be part of the pulse of everyday life. Ruskin’s spectacular public lectures were equal parts verbal and visual, enhanced by hand-crafted models, casts and lecture diagrams - some of which haven’t been seen since Ruskin himself used them on stage.

School of Ruskin launches digitally from October 2020, with a virtual exhibition accompanied by a series of broadcasts from The Ruskin, and the launch of a conservation appeal for Ruskin’s lecture diagrams. Broadcasts will open up the bring the process of conserving the first lecture diagrams with the Scottish Conservation Studio. The on-site iteration of ‘School of Ruskin’ will open in January 2021, co-developed with our campus communities.

This exhibition is part of a ground-breaking collaborative project in partnership with The Royal Society placing the history and legacy of lecture diagrams in the arts in the wider tradition established in the sciences.