Opening Discussion for Measure | Anna Von Mertens || Radcliffe Institute

4,235 views · Published 26 November 2018 · 47:43 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: Harvard University · 2018 · Education

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The artist Anna Von Mertens presents an opening discussion on Measure, a commissioned exhibition for the Radcliffe Institute that explores the life and work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, one of the women “computers” hired to study glass-plate astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory a century ago. Our current understanding of the size and shape of the cosmos is due in no small part to Leavitt’s patient search for patterns, reimagined in Von Mertens’s meticulous stitches and intricate graphite marks.

Joining her in conversation is Jennifer L. Roberts, Johnson-Kulukundis Family Faculty Director of the Arts, Radcliffe Institute, and Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

For information about the Radcliffe Institute and its many public programs, visit https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/.

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