CALVIN SCHOLARSHIP
A NATURAL CONNECTION Jennifer Steensma Hoag is a professor and photographer whose art explores how humans interact with the natural environment. Her recent exhibition, Botanica, “considers the visuals that humans make to understand, appreciate, and communicate about the natural world.” Production of the artwork in the exhibit was made possible through a sabbatical leave provided by Calvin University. Here, Steensma Hoag explains her work in her own words.
CONTINGENT EXISTENCE “Michigan naturalist and environmental educator Jeanette Henderson ’02 sourced local non-native species and created floral arrangements that I transformed into photographic images inspired by Northern Renaissance still life paintings. During the Renaissance, plant and animal specimens were collected through increased trade across oceans and continents. There was a fascination with the unusual and exotic, and an interest in leveraging plants for medicinal use and economic opportunity. Northern Renaissance still life paintings often had allegories of mortality and morality. The presence of nature enforced that life passes away—flowers wither, birds die. The non-native species in Contingent Existence were intentionally brought to North America to fulfill aesthetic, medicinal, culinary, and landscaping needs— or unintentionally as stowaways in pots or ship ballasts. The existence of these specimens in Michigan are the result of human intervention.”
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