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“The Display Strategies of Hans Sloane’s Collection As ‘Bifocal Data'” an open talk by Phillip Rhys Olney on 4th June

Phillip Rhys Olney. The image courtesy of Phillip Olney’s LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-rhys-olney-742270248/?originalSubdomain=uk

HDSM and Sloane Lab (UCL) are pleased to welcome Phillip Rhys Olney (artist and Sloane Lab community fellow) to give a talk in the next episode of the Sloane Lab Symposium Series. On 4th June at 16:30 (CEST), Phyllip will present a talk titled “The Display Strategies of Hans Sloane’s Collection As ‘Bifocal Data'”.

The event will accommodate an online format. To secure your spot and receive the seminar link please follow the instructions on Eventbrite.

About the speaker: Phillip’s professional sphere is Fine Art & English Literature. He is interested in investigating the ancestral role of working-class industries amid the cultural contexts of class, education, and social mobility. Phillip graduated from the University of Oxford with First Class Honours (English Language & Literature BA, 2021) and as Sir Frank Bowling Scholar from Chelsea College of Art & Design (Fine Art MA, Distinction, 2023).

The abstract of the talk is as follows:

Phillip Rhys Olney’s project with the Sloane Lab sought to gain an understanding of the way in which the objects of Sloane’s collection were stored in his residences in Bloomsbury and Chelsea. The project then asked to what degree the physicality of the collection in cabinets designed by William Hallett affected their curation, and organisation. By physically and digitally modelling these cabinets, the project understands to what extent these cabinets enabled processes of subtle curation. The project understands Hallett’s cabinets to be ‘bifocal data’– a framing technique which requires the observer to look both ‘at’ and ‘through’ them (Sperberg-McQueen, 2018). The completed project posits theories as to how storage of Sloane’s collection created organisational principles, and influenced the curation of the collection at the British Museum at Montagu House, in 1753, and later at the British Library and Natural History Museum.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
valentinaprishchepova (May 31, 2024). “The Display Strategies of Hans Sloane’s Collection As ‘Bifocal Data'” an open talk by Phillip Rhys Olney on 4th June. HDSM. Retrieved May 15, 2025 from https://hdsm.hypotheses.org/3270


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