News

Virginia Marano receives the Emerging Scholar Award "Aging & Social Change: Sixteenth Interdisciplinary Conference,” at Akdeniz University in Antalya, Turkey, 15-16 October 2026. 

The world is growing older — and with it, the questions surrounding what a good, connected, and equitable later life looks like are becoming more urgent than ever.

Aging is not just a biological process. It is a lived experience shaped by family, community, policy, and culture — one that touches every corner of the globe. As populations shift and societies adapt, aging has emerged as one of the defining challenges and opportunities of our era.

This conference brings together researchers, practitioners, and thinkers from across disciplines, geographies, and cultural contexts to ask questions, share evidence, and imagine new possibilities. It aims to build an epistemic community: a space where insights cross borders, where different ways of knowing meet, and where dialogue turns into shared understanding.

Urban Creativity: Conference and Activities 2026, Lisbon.

As part of “Urban Creativity: Conference and Activities 2026, Intangible: Art Canon and Motion“ from July 2-4 2026, Virginia Marano presented her paper "Hacking the Wall: Graffiti, Interfaces, and the Moving Image".

Aesthetics of Solace, Politics of Care

A Transdisciplinary Workshop organized by Hana Gründler and Alejandro Nodarse Jammal, Research Group Ethico-Aesthetics of the Visual, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut from 11.-12. June 2026.

Across two days, fourteen speakers approach care and solace as historically contingent and politically fraught.  As part of the conference, Virginia Marano presents a paper with Rosemarie Garland-Thomson on “From Orphanage to Museum: An Account of Adaptive Reuse at the Museo degli Innocenti”.

Beauty and the Sublime in Gestation and Coming into Being: Art and the Aesthetics of Pregnancy and Birth, 2026, The Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB), Virtual Symposium Program

As part of the conference, Virginia Marano presents a paper on “Touch, Autonomy, and the Non-Visual Aesthetics of Pregnancy”.

ICON26 Group Event: Beyond Access and Authenticity?

Virginia Marano was part of the ICON26 Group Event: Beyond Access and Authenticity? Rethinking the Conservation of Installation Art through Disability Access on 23 June 2026. 

In line with the theme of Icon26: Practice, People, and Purpose, this was an interdisciplinary panel discussion with a Q&A element. The event was held in Edinburgh at The Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, National Galleries of Scotland.

The Icon Contemporary Art Group brings together curators, conservators, writers, artists and collection visitors from across the spectrum of ability, to discuss their thoughts and experiences regarding the wider subject of accessibility and effect. 

SAH 79th Annual International Conference: Mexico City 2026

In April 2026, Virginia Marano presented her paper "Provisional Permissions: The Cane, the Corset, and Crip Reconfigurations of Space" as part of the panel "Small Objects, Spaces, and Practices of Care" at the 2026 annual international conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in Mexico City. SAH Annual International Conferences bring professionals in architectural history and allied fields together for scholarly exchange and networking. Meetings feature paper sessions, keynote talks, receptions, architecture tours, and more.

Virginia Marano was awarded the 2026 Scott Opler Emerging Scholar Fellowship at the Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference.

(CAA) 114th Annual Conference, Chicago, 18–21 February 2026

Virginia Marano co-organised the panel "Uncertain Access: Art, Design, and Technology," College Art Association (CAA) 114th Annual Conference, Chicago, 18–21 February 2026. With Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Georgina Kleege, and David Serlin.

The CAA Annual Conference is the largest gathering of art historians, artists, designers, curators and professionals in the field of the visual arts. Each year, the programme features a range of events reflecting a broad spectrum of topics proposed by CAA members, committees and affiliated societies. The 114th Annual Conference, held from 18 to 21 February 2026 at the Hilton Chicago, comprised over 275 events and programme items. Most of these took place exclusively on-site, whilst part of the programme was designed as a hybrid event. The book and trade fair will take place both on-site and online.