Dr Carla Benzan

Professional biography

BFA Hons (Concordia University, Montréal Canada); BA Hons; MA (University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada); PhD (University College London) Dr. Carla Benzan specialises in the art and visual culture of Catholic Reformation Italy. Her projects span religious and scientific contexts as well as historical and contemporary periods. As a trained artist, Carla is interested in thinking across periodisation, while never losing sight of the particularity and richness of early modern image cultures. Before joining the OU Carla taught at the University College London, the University of Essex, and at McGill University. Her research has been supported by numerous grants and awards including the Mellon Foundation and the Warburg Institute.

Research interests

Carla’s research is concerned with the authority granted to lifelike images in sacred and scientific contexts during the Catholic Reformations. Working at the juncture of art, science, and religion, she focuses on the so-called ‘realism’ or ‘naturalism’ of northern Italy. Her interdisciplinary research examines the active role played by lifelike images in pilgrimage, procession, private devotion, encyclopedic collections, garden culture, missionary travel, and natural history. 

Carla's work is increasingly engaged with ecocritical approaches to the study of art and culture before around 1800 in order to historicise human relationships with the world in light of today's Earth Crisis. She is the co-lead of the film and outreach project Art & Ecology that brings together historical artworks and artefacts from across art and science collections to tell an untold history of climate change. You can watch Carla's film Hunting for Feathers online along with the other films and the series trailer. 

Teaching interests

As a teacher Carla is committed to the importance of active learning, community-building, and transparency. In these and other ways, her teaching empowers students to become more curious and critical about the way that art and history intertwine. Carla is keen to support the learning of all students including those with dyslexia, ADHD, autism and other forms of neurodiversity, valuing each student's unique insights and perspectives. 

Carla was intrumental in the creation of A237 Art and life before 1800 during its production as Module Co-Chair and she continues in this role during its presentation. She oversaw the third part of A237 as a convenor, Art in Action and authored a range of module materials covering topics from the Shinto arts of medieval Japan to dramatic terracotta sculptures in early modern Italy. She also authored two chapters on Art and Visual Cultures in the Modern World. The first introduces students to an exciting range of photographic and print technologies that transformed art-making in the nineteeth century; the second explores the importance of performance and the body in new attitudes to painting in postwar art. Since she joined the OU in 2020 Carla has been a member of the module teams for A112 (Cultures), A226 (Exploring Art and Visual Culture), A344 (Art and its Global Histories) and the Masters in Art History.  

Prospective postgraduate students who are interested in the history of sacred or scientific image cultures of the early modern period are invited to contact Carla directly by email. She is particularly interested in projects that investigate the role of art and visual culture in the natural history networks that connected Italy and Britain, and on the fraught politics and ethics of artworks that adapt and modify Indigenous art traditions for a European audience.  

External collaborations

Co-organiser with Joanne Anderson (University of Aberdeen), “Image and Ascent: Mountain Terrains in the History of Art” Conference hosted by the Warburg Institute in the School for Advanced Studies, University of London. 14–17 September, 2020.

International links

Collaborator with Denis Ribouillault (Lead Investigator), Eva Struhal (Lead Investigator), Itay Sapir (Researcher), and Jean-François Gauvain (Collaborator), “Before the ‘Great Divide’: The Shared Language(s) of Art and Science in the Early Modern Period. Grant awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2019–2024).