And here’s a link to the other meetings:
On March 11th 2023 at 2:00 EST there was a public webinar about the “Artists in the Archives Project“ organized by the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History and hosted by KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE. During this event European artists were invited to reflect on their experience of working within American historical archives. For my part I spoke about my collage work “Trees as Part of a Community” that I created for the project and my experience in working with the museum’s archives.
See a short description of the project below:
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stewart-Swift Research Center, the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History invited an international network of collage artists to engage with historical materials in the archives and create collages showing the idea of community in a 21st century world. Five artists from Europe participated in the project.
“Trees as part of community”
The collage I created for the exhibition is titled “Trees as part of a community.” It is made from photographs I found in the Vermont Landscape Change Archive. It is a tribute to the people of Vermont, whose faces I saw in hundreds of photographs, and to the trees that are part of the community. In the photo we see a large elm tree. It was one of the most popular trees in the United States. Life goes on among the trees. We sit under them, mark city streets with them, date under them, admire them, watch them grow….
People‟s stories are part of this tree. So it becomes a family tree, a witness to human generations, human lives, and people are, after all, part of nature. They breathe through photosynthesis, which is the main activity of a tree. But trees can also be fragile – just like our lives. Sometimes disasters happen. Since the mid20th century, Dutch elm disease has killed millions of these trees around the world. The culprit is a beetle called the elm beetle, carrying the fungus Ophistoma ulmi, which destroys this species of trees. But humans are primarily responsible for the spread of the disease. The lives of trees and people are intertwined. How to cope with the passing of time? How to accept the fact that we are mortal after all?
At the bottom of the tree we see a beetle that threatens the elm tree. But at the very top are little girls holding an elm seed. The girls are hopeful. Will they plant a new tree?
The book, “Artists in the Archives,” includes artworks and commentary, as well as an extensive essay by Ric Kasini Kadour on the project and its context. “Community, Archives and Artists” presents a broad view of the challenges facing communities in 21st century America. It considers the role that local history plays in our communities and the evolution of history museums, archives and collections throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The author reflects on the role artists can play in interpreting and presenting historical material in light of this history.
You can order book HERE.