'Living Portraits: Jem Belcher' panel discussion and Q&A

4-5pm, 23 September 2022, online

Book your free ticket here

Join experts from the National Portrait Gallery, Athena Arts Foundation, Megaverse and the National Youth Theatre for a live streaming, discussion and Q&A around ‘Living Portraits’, as part of the Art History Festival 2022.

This innovative experience allows you to hear directly from 19th century bareknuckle boxer and butcher Jem Belcher. Belcher speaks to us in a monologue by a young writer and brought to life by an actor from the National Youth Theatre, while the image is subtly manipulated to appear as if to come alive. As the first in a planned series of ‘Living Portraits’, the team will discuss how the techniques and technology behind the experience could be further used to enable the subjects of historical paintings to reveal themselves through real-time motion capture and storytelling. With themes such as identity and marginalisation, the objective is to engage audiences online and in-gallery with little-known figures in collections of historic art.

Creating an intimate connection to the past, highlighting the role historical paintings can play in understanding the present, and presenting portraits as compelling works of art, the prototype aims to provide a model for digital engagement which can be used by other collections around the UK.