Experts from around the world will meet in Bristol this Thursday and Friday to explore the implications of ephemerality for art and its histories through a wide range of historical and critical perspectives.

Professor Simon Shaw-Miller of Bristol's Department of History of Art and Professor Paul Binski of the University of Cambridge will give the key note addresses.

The conference will cover all periods and contexts that engage with the relation between art and ephemerality within aesthetic, cultural, social, and material frameworks.

Speakers will ask how ephemeral practices—from medieval and early modern rituals to contemporary site-specific and performance-based events—intersect with the history of art and exhibitions.

They will explore how art history should negotiate methodologies and strategies of documentation and preservation when the delicate nature of materials sometimes results in the transformation, deterioration, or even disappearance of the work.

How museums and other exhibition spaces have attempted to collect, display and preserve ephemeral objects will also be discussed.

The symposium takes place on Thursday 26 and Friday 27 June and is open to all.  This event is supported by the Alumni Foundation, University of Bristol and the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts (BIRTHA).