IFF Directors TaLks 2014

This page announces the events where IFF Director Margaret Wertheim, IFF Co-Director Christine Wertheim, and IFF Assistant Director Anna Mayer, will be speaking about IFF subjects and projects during 2014.

Melbourne University
Melbourne Australia – December 15, 2014
Crocheting a Coral Reef 
In this talk at Melbourne University's new Carlton Connect center, Margaret Wertheim will discuss the Crochet Coral Reef project as a radical way of engaging audiences with science and mathematics.

Australian Academy of Sciences
Canberra, Australia – December 4, 2014
Why Does Science Communication Matter
In this keynote address for the Australian Academy of Sciences conference The Edges of Astronomy, Margaret Wertheim will discuss the historical and contemporary importance of communicating science to a broad public audience.

University of Southern California
Los Angeles – November 18, 2014
What Makes a Monster
IFF Director Margaret Wertheim chairs a panel on the "monstrous" as part of USC's innovative Visions and Voices series. Panelists include artist Charlie White, folklore scholar Tok Thompson and computer game designer Leonard Boyarsky.

New York University Abu Dhabi Institute
Abu Dhabi – October 1, 2014
Reefs, Rubbish and Reason
In this panel discussion about art and environmentalism, held in conjunction with the latest exhibition of the Crochet Coral Reef at NYU Abu Dhabi, IFF director Margaret Wertheim is joined by coral reef scientist John Burt and cultural theorist Lawrence Weschler.

New York University Abu Dhabi Institute
Abu Dhabi – September 29, 2014
Radical Craft – Re-imagining Crochet
This panel discussion held in conjunction with the latest exhibition of the Crochet Coral Reef, brings together 3 artists operating at the edges of radical craft practice: Reef co-creator Christine Wertheim, playspace designer Toshiko Horiuchi McAdam, and crochet-taxidermist Shauna Richardson.

Brown University
Providence, RI – April 14, 2014
Reefs, Rubbish and Reason: Bringing art and science together in the age of global warming
As part of her TAPS' Performance as Research Residency at Brown, Margaret Wertheim will discuss the Crochet Coral Reef project and its unlikely conjunction of art, science, environmentalism and geometry. Tracing a line from sea slugs to general relativity and ocean acidification, Wertheim will raise the possibility that this nexus of art and science may encourage a shift in consciousness about humanity's role in the ecological future of our planet.

Previous Directors Talks:
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009