Ellie Chan
@elliechan.bsky.social
Art History/Music • Writer, singer, painter • Early Modernist at the Warburg Institute • BBC/AHRC New Gen Thinker • Previously: Maths is Pretty🧮 (Routledge ‘21), Art is Everywhere🦩🎨 (Big Picture Press ‘22), Music is Visible🧜🏼♀️ (OUP ‘24)
One whole week of Duet! It’s been an absolute whirlwind of incredibly enriching conversations with @petroc.bsky.social @elizabethalker.bsky.social and @drkkennedy.bsky.social and SUCH a delight to see this whimsical little book out into the world. Available now in all good bookshops!
September 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM
One whole week of Duet! It’s been an absolute whirlwind of incredibly enriching conversations with @petroc.bsky.social @elizabethalker.bsky.social and @drkkennedy.bsky.social and SUCH a delight to see this whimsical little book out into the world. Available now in all good bookshops!
Team, exciting news! Duet: An Artful History of music not only has a cover, it is also available to preorder!
It’s a visual history of music 35,000BCE-present day, but also about failing to become a musician; about second chances; and about learning to look and listen.
It’s a visual history of music 35,000BCE-present day, but also about failing to become a musician; about second chances; and about learning to look and listen.
March 1, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Team, exciting news! Duet: An Artful History of music not only has a cover, it is also available to preorder!
It’s a visual history of music 35,000BCE-present day, but also about failing to become a musician; about second chances; and about learning to look and listen.
It’s a visual history of music 35,000BCE-present day, but also about failing to become a musician; about second chances; and about learning to look and listen.
Her husband: nO yoU cAnNot bE a cOnCErt pIanISt
Anna Casparsson: *creates stunning embroidered art instead*
A fascinating musical-visual intersection at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm
Anna Casparsson: *creates stunning embroidered art instead*
A fascinating musical-visual intersection at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm
February 28, 2024 at 5:06 PM
Her husband: nO yoU cAnNot bE a cOnCErt pIanISt
Anna Casparsson: *creates stunning embroidered art instead*
A fascinating musical-visual intersection at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm
Anna Casparsson: *creates stunning embroidered art instead*
A fascinating musical-visual intersection at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm
And a Happy Valentines Day to us all, with love from Thomas Trevelyon's Elizabethan Meme Book.
February 14, 2024 at 11:53 AM
And a Happy Valentines Day to us all, with love from Thomas Trevelyon's Elizabethan Meme Book.
It’s only taken her 8 months but Madame is finally starting to get the hang of this feline research assistant malarkey.
February 9, 2024 at 1:17 PM
It’s only taken her 8 months but Madame is finally starting to get the hang of this feline research assistant malarkey.
Easing myself gently into 2024 (and post another bout of covid) writing about Cornelia Parker’s Breathless (2001) today. Feels awkwardly poignant.
January 2, 2024 at 10:58 AM
Easing myself gently into 2024 (and post another bout of covid) writing about Cornelia Parker’s Breathless (2001) today. Feels awkwardly poignant.
Spent yesterday doing my first on-location recording for something pretty damn exciting! Tune into Music Matters on Radio 3 this Saturday at 11.45 to hear me in action! #earlymodern
November 22, 2023 at 12:07 PM
Spent yesterday doing my first on-location recording for something pretty damn exciting! Tune into Music Matters on Radio 3 this Saturday at 11.45 to hear me in action! #earlymodern
Visualisations of music notation in the wild! From a (probably) Victorian banner for St Wilfrid, recycling segments of ecclesiastical vestments.
Particularly love the ghostly holes, showing where gilt thread would once have embellished a far more elaborate foliated starting letter!
Particularly love the ghostly holes, showing where gilt thread would once have embellished a far more elaborate foliated starting letter!
November 3, 2023 at 12:31 PM
Visualisations of music notation in the wild! From a (probably) Victorian banner for St Wilfrid, recycling segments of ecclesiastical vestments.
Particularly love the ghostly holes, showing where gilt thread would once have embellished a far more elaborate foliated starting letter!
Particularly love the ghostly holes, showing where gilt thread would once have embellished a far more elaborate foliated starting letter!
Delighted (infuriated) to announce that the timely arrival of this witch coven board game (that I kickstarted last year) has proved that a debilitating brain injury has done nothing to stop Rich from being literally undefeatable at any given board game. Pleasing progress, but also GRRR. #septima
October 30, 2023 at 11:28 AM
Delighted (infuriated) to announce that the timely arrival of this witch coven board game (that I kickstarted last year) has proved that a debilitating brain injury has done nothing to stop Rich from being literally undefeatable at any given board game. Pleasing progress, but also GRRR. #septima
An emblem for us all, struggling through every Wednesday, everywhere:
‘Cannot swym at all’
‘Cannot swym at all’
October 25, 2023 at 12:06 PM
An emblem for us all, struggling through every Wednesday, everywhere:
‘Cannot swym at all’
‘Cannot swym at all’
Everyone please send good vibes to my baby midnight rose apricot seedlings - they decided the beginning of September was the best time to show their little shoots and I am so worried they are too little to make it through this sudden cold snap!
October 16, 2023 at 11:43 AM
Everyone please send good vibes to my baby midnight rose apricot seedlings - they decided the beginning of September was the best time to show their little shoots and I am so worried they are too little to make it through this sudden cold snap!
Most - but not all - copies of the Whole Booke of Psalmes published up to c.1650 contained a brief guide on how to read music. Whoever owned this copy (from 1591) added the table in, and got it right 2nd try. An amazing insight into early modern musical reading in progress!
October 10, 2023 at 12:22 PM
Most - but not all - copies of the Whole Booke of Psalmes published up to c.1650 contained a brief guide on how to read music. Whoever owned this copy (from 1591) added the table in, and got it right 2nd try. An amazing insight into early modern musical reading in progress!
From today I’m a Frances Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute!
I’m looking at how the image of music changed in the popular imagination with the advent of print, thinking specifically about varieties of literacy and the relationship to emblem culture. Follow along for updates!
I’m looking at how the image of music changed in the popular imagination with the advent of print, thinking specifically about varieties of literacy and the relationship to emblem culture. Follow along for updates!
October 2, 2023 at 8:19 AM
From today I’m a Frances Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute!
I’m looking at how the image of music changed in the popular imagination with the advent of print, thinking specifically about varieties of literacy and the relationship to emblem culture. Follow along for updates!
I’m looking at how the image of music changed in the popular imagination with the advent of print, thinking specifically about varieties of literacy and the relationship to emblem culture. Follow along for updates!
Last three days before my new job starts. The first day of the Moon Festival. Obviously I’m doing what any sensible human would do and making my first attempt at snowskin mooncakes with this 1930s lucky fish mould I found in an antiques shop. What could possibly go wrong.
September 29, 2023 at 9:50 AM
Last three days before my new job starts. The first day of the Moon Festival. Obviously I’m doing what any sensible human would do and making my first attempt at snowskin mooncakes with this 1930s lucky fish mould I found in an antiques shop. What could possibly go wrong.