A Wandering Eye: Color, Light & Culture with Miguel Flores-Vianna

Photographer and writer Miguel Flores-Vianna is always on the move. In his latest book, "A Wandering Eye," Flores-Vianna shares snaps captured in 14 countries on five continents, recording what he sees with a distinctly romantic eye. Flores-Vianna’s rare vision — trained on the nuances of color, light, history, and culture — places him in the lineage of artists, observers, and collectors, like Sir John Soane, who fashion a transporting collage of images and insights from the material of everyday life. In this talk, Flores-Vianna takes us on a digital journey through some of his favorite photos, giving us a glimpse of the colorful and culturally rich worlds they conjure. Join us!

About the 2020-2021 Soane Lecture Series: Color and Light

In 1780, John Soane returned from the Grand Tour with a fresh eye for light and color — daylight streaming through an oculus, marbles aglow in amber dusk, a rich red fragment of wall plaster from Pompeii. In the years that followed, Soane became obsessed with light and the effects it could produce, deploying colored and stained glass, richly pigmented surfaces, and increasingly inventive lighting strategies throughout his interiors to generate dramatic, ever-changing scenes.

Today, Sir John Soane’s Museum in London stands as a testament to the architect’s bravura manipulation of color and light, brimming with “exquisite hues and magical effects” (in the words of Soane’s friend, the novelist Barbara Hofland) enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year. Inspired by Soane, our 2020-2021 lecture series considers the interplay of light and color across periods and disciplines, from Soane’s world to the arenas of art, architecture, and design in the twenty-first century.