Huntington Library East Asian Gardens SymposiumThe Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens will host  one-day symposium “East Asian Gardens as Social Spaces” on Saturday, Sept 28, from 8:30 am through 5:00 pm.

Registration deadline is Sept. 16. Registration fee is $15, and optional buffet lunch is $16. For registration form, click here or mbailey@huntington.org or (626) 405-3503.

This symposium will examine how gardens, both private and imperial, were viewed and used in China, Korea, and Japan. 

The term “garden” connotes, among many things, shelter, ownership, mental and physical sustenance, and nature’s beauty. 

In all three countries, gardens were gathering places for the imperial family, literati, scholar officials, poets, musicians, and performers. 

Gardens were enclaves of intellectual and political retreat, book publishing and collecting, poetry, painting and calligraphy.

The speakers will examine these different aspects and more in selected gardens, whether fictional or real, in China, Korea and Japan.

 

Program

8:30 am, Registration & Coffee

9:15 am, Welcome by James P. Folsom, Director of the Botanical Gardens, The Huntington, and T. June Li, Curator of the Chinese Garden at The Huntington

9:30 am, Key Note Speaker, Craig Clunas, University of Oxford. “Looking at Painting in the Ming Garen”

10:00 am, Morning Session: Yang Ye, University of California, Riverside; Dore J. Levy, Brown University, “Vignettism and Garden Aesthetics in The Story of the Stone”; Tobie Meyer-Fong, Johns Hopkins University, “Gardens as Sites of Loss and Remembrance in China’s 19th Century Civil War”

2:00 pm, Afternoon Session: Burglind Jungman, University of California, Los Angeles; Jiyeon Kim, Ulsan University, Korea, “Perfect Boundaries?: Joseon Scholars’ Gatherings in Mountain Pavilions”; Seiko Goto, Rugers, The State University of New jersey, “Koishikawa Korakuen: its Meaning and Usage”

The symposium will be held at Ahmanson Room in the Botanical Center. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens is located at 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108. www.huntington.org