Earthly Extractions

Earthly Extractions “Politics is a matter of stories, and stories matter because of myth. Mythmaking nourishes imagination, creativity, and the renewal of meaning for collective life.”

Earthborn Democracy: A Political Theory of Entangled Life, 2004:1 Ali Aslam, David W. McIvoer & Joe Alden Schlosser “Earthly extraction” may bring to mind images of irreparable terrestrial violence—strip mining, soil depletion, deforestation— as well as related corporate and transnational competition, the coercion of a globalized labor force, and depletion of indigenous resources. Within scholarly and artistic endeavors of conservation, collection, curation, and interpretation, do we likewise practice a form of extraction? How might humanists, scientists, artists, librarians, and today’s student climate activists collaborate to introduce a series of mythologies about extraction that might reshape our goal of collective continuance? How might new mythologies inaugurate a politics of change?

As you move through our exhibit of images and books, consider: What are our modern mythologies of extraction? Do you see traces of these mythologies on our walls? To your eye, does something else linger, more hopefully, inside these images too? ...

The landscape’s surface is marred by the presence of a seemingly violent eruption from below in Open Territory (Nancy Diessner, 2016). This effect is achieved through the photopolymer intaglio print technique in which the artist uses a uv light to burn the image with a light-sensitive emulsion.

Look closer: What do you see emerging from these bubbles and scars?

Featuring mushrooms foraged from the Kinney Center’s meadow and wormwood gathered from its kitchen garden, Artemis in Constellation (Madge Evers 2022) is a mushroom spore print. These unique prints are created by laying mushrooms on paper and allowing them to release their spores.

Look closer: Can you see the mushroom’s gills captured in this print?

You may be surprised to learn that Nothingness Gathers (Tekla McInerney, 2016) was inspired by the same poem as Open Territory, “Traces” by Annie G. Rogers. Both prints were created at Zea Mays studio in Florence, MA, a studio committed to innovative non-toxic and sustainable printmaking. Its namesake, Zea Mays (sweet corn), is a plant known for its ability to extract heavy metal toxins from the soil through its leaves and roots.

In New England, naturally occurring fieldstones rise to the earth’s surface through the freezethaw cycle of our local climate. Farmers have used these stones for centuries to create the rock walls that are ubiquitous in Massachusetts. Martha’s Vineyard 127 (Aaron Siskind, 1954) invites us to look closely at one of these walls, at the texture and lichen that grows there.

Look around: Peek out the window immediately to the left of this piece. See the rock wall in the foreground? Notice anything familiar?

Although inspired by a passage from the King James Bible, Their Blood Shall Be Spilled Out Like Dust (Barry Moser, 1999) is abstract in its presentation. Forcing us into an up-close encounter, what can we learn by stepping back?

Look from afar: What could this be? Blood? Asphalt? Tar? Oil? Tree sap? How do you understand this piece differently by looking at it from a distance?

2023 Artist in Residence, Suzette Marie Martin, often works in multilayered formats. Here, she alternates passages from the Vulgate Bible (1495) in the Kinney Center’s rare book collection with text from the 2021 IPCC report on climate change. Juxtaposed by a diagram of Robert Boyle’s air pump reproduced from Paradoxa hydrostatica (1677), also in our collection, Martin’s Paradoxa Hydrostatica (2023) invites us to consider linkages between Boyle’s experimentation with air pressure and our contemporary concerns with air quality and ozone depletion.

In Rocky Mountain Oil Wells, Dacono, Colorado (John Pfahl,1982) oil derricks appear in stark contrast to the golden wheatfield and Rocky Mountains towering in the background. Playing with depth perspective, the derricks seem to reverberate becoming more diminutive as they near the snow-topped mountains.

Look out: From the reading room’s picture window, we see the Berkshire Mountain Range.

In 2016, there was a proposal to install a natural gas pipeline that would have extended through these mountains. Although this proposal was defeated, how do you imagine that our own landscape might have changed had the proposal been approved?

The aerial-view of Kentucky #42-15 (Barry Andersen, 1989) encourages us to look down at this grid-like construction of imposed order and the strict boundaries between water and land. This scene is typical of Andersen’s work, whose interests lie primarily at the intersection of human activity and the land.

Look closer: Do you notice anything in the water? What purposes might these pools serve?

Inspired by the Kinney Center’s rare book collection and early modern alchemists, 2024 Artist in Residence, Brandon Graving used hand-made and historically-specific pigments to explore ideas of human ambition and the recklessness of our own hubris in Elusive Prize (2024). Graving’s studio, Gravity Press Experimental Print Shop in North Adams, MA, is home to one of the largest platen presses in the world.

Look askance: Move around this piece, take it in from different angles. What textures, reflections, shadows, and impressions do you notice as you move around it? If you had to describe it, what words would you use?