Rare Book Exhibits
Elemental Thinking: Water
In collaboration with ENG791/MUSIC690E, this exhibit showcases materials from the Kinney Center’s rare book library that consider how early moderns engaged with water as destructive force, valuable resource, and catalyst for the imagination.
John Evelyn, Kalendarium Hortense (1683)
Seasonal Distortions: An Almanac for the Anthropocene
This exhibit features materials from the Kinney Center’s rare book collection that inspired poet, Felicity Sheehy, during her residency. Looking primarily at early modern almanacs, botanicals, and husbandry guides, Sheehy asks, “What form should the seasonal poem take during a time of seasonal instability?”
Water-Worlds: Ripple Effects or Sea Change?
Co-Curated by Evan MacCarthy & Marjorie Rubright
Spring 2024
Fatal Flora: Poisonous Revenge Narratives
This rare book exhibit, inspired by work from Artist in Residence, Susan Montgomery, explores the distinction between healing and harming as early modern women possess the plant knowledge that separated damage from remedy. The exhibit showcases 17th century herbals from the Kinney Center collection alongside plant specimens from the UMass Herbarium.
Paolo Giovio, La prima parte dell'historie del svo tempo (1558)
Elusive Prize: Wonder, Wing, and Transmutation
This rare book exhibit features the range of materials and fibers you might find in a rare book library. As a sculptor and printmaker, Artist in Residence Brandon Graving studied many of the papers and inks on display here.
Apocalypse: Science & Myth
What do myths about a lost golden age or apocalypse tell us about our future? How did the early moderns explain and conceptualize stories about the cyclical destruction of the world? This rare book exhibit on display with Suzette Marie Martin’s original artwork investigates the power of scientific narrative in a precious world.
Suzette Marie Martin, Tipping Points, 2023
John Gerard, Herbal, 1633
Foraged: Kitchen Garden Herbaria
What were early modern attitudes toward mushrooms? Did people forage? Presented in tandem with Madge Evers’ mushroom spore and cyanotype prints this exhibit explores the wild life of mushrooms.
John Worlidge, Systema agriculturae, 1681
Mapping Terroir: Memory & Myth
This rare book exhibit, in conversation with Andrea Caluori’s linocuts, invites visitors to consider how working relationships between animals, tools, and the natural world are preserved in early modern books.
From Coral to Constellations
In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Medusa’s blood was said to create coral. This exhibit explored the ways in which myths generate ideas about the natural world.
Georg Andreas Agricola, The experimental husbandman and gardener, 1726
Orchards & Grafting
Drawing from the Center’s books on pomology and orchard management, this exhibit examined grafting as a way to limit hybridity in order to produce desirable traits in tree fruit for eating, baking, and cider production.