Sunday, 11 December 2025
12 – 3 pm
in English
Lecture/workshop as part of the work Junkology by Fari Shams with Pierre Von-Ow:
Folding as a Projection Method: Early Modern Perspectives
This talk explores the unique proliferation of foldable, interactive paper illustrations in perspective and geometrical treatises throughout the early modern period in Britain. Ranging from simple diagrams to complex articulated structures formed by the intersection of multiple planes, such ‘moveable schemes’ – as they were traditionally called – stress the importance of tactility in spatial representation. Foldable solids of variable complexity enabled readers to dissect the most elementary components of geometry, just as paper anatomies revealed, layer by layer, the inner workings of the human body.
This talk proposes to examine how the apparently innocent act of folding paper habituated hands and minds to the logic of prehension and appropriation, especially handy in a period of colonial expansion. It will be followed by a workshop designed in collaboration with Fari Shams inviting audience members to individually and collectively fold and unfold shapes.
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Pierre Von-Ow is Associate Lecturer in Early Modern Art History at the University of St Andrews, translator and curator. His work focuses on the intersections between art, knowledge, and disability in the early modern period. In 2024-2025, Pierre was a Fellow in Art History at the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis, where his work focused on the role of touch and blindness in the history of spatial representation. An article inspired by his research, ‘Touching Colors: Notes on the Making of Tact-similes’, is forthcoming in journal Studiolo (spring 2026).
