‘Technique and Theory: Reconstructing Camper’s Ideal Shoe’, presentation by Marieke Hendriksen at Histories of Healthy Ageing conference – University of Groningen, 21-23 June 2017

As Western populations grow increasingly older, ‘healthy ageing’ is presented as one of today’s greatest medical and societal challenges. However, contrary to what many policy makers want us to believe, the aspiration to live long, healthy and happy lives is not a problem specific to our times. On the contrary, successful ageing has a long history.

The conference Histories of Healthy Ageing is based on the assumption that ‘healthy ageing’ has informed the medical agenda since Antiquity. With ‘healthy ageing’ we refer to ways of thinking about and treating the body not only from a medical perspective, but also taking into account questions of what constitutes a happy and fulfilled life. In particular these latter issues were central to medicine before 1800 and relate to healthy living as much as to questions connected specifically to old age. Thus whether we speak of classic ways of training the athlete’s body, medieval religious rites, the pre-modern obsession with regimen (rules for living a healthy life), or the upper-class fancy to visit spas, at the root of it all was a wish for wellbeing, health and longevity.The conference will be accompanied by an exhibition in the Groningen University Museum and the University Medical Centre Groningen, opening in June 2017.

ARTECHNE postdoc Marieke Hendriksen will present a paper at the conference on ‘Technique and theory: reconstructing Camper’s ideal shoe’.