poster designed by Francesca Mills ’27
From March 22 to April 12, the Clark Humanities Museum will be hosting Portraying the Self in the Anthropocene, an exhibition prepared by the students of the Core II course “Scaped Subjects: Portraying the Self in the Anthropocene.” Its opening reception will begin with a lecture at 4 p.m. on the 22nd. The Clark Humanities Museum is open to all students, faculty, and staff of The Claremont Colleges.
The Core II course, taught by Professor of History Amy Alemu and Professor in French Studies Chloé Vettier, “explores the relationship between subjecthood and environment in the wake of planetary transformation” and asks the question, “What self-representations are afforded in the Anthropocene; how does the self understand itself through environments it has altered or in critique of infrastructures of representation?”
Portraying the Self in the Anthropocene will exhibit books, photographs, and blueprints from Scripps’ Ella Strong Denison Library; reproductions of photographs from Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery; and an Aleut cigar holder lent from Pomona College’s Benton Museum of Art.
The exhibition’s description, composed by students Sara Cawley, Megan Ikeda, and Raelyn Ponce, reads, “Portraying the Self in the Anthropocene explores human experiences both locally and globally in the context of a rapidly changing physical world. In order to display the volatile, harsh, and simultaneously playful characteristics of interaction between humans and the natural world, we selected books, prints, and photographs from various artists. We hope to bring to light the ways in which people have found appreciation for what the natural world can offer us and how we can take action to protect it.”
exhibition logo designed by Safiya Martinez
Over the display period, the Clark Humanities Museum will host three related events:
- March 22, 4–5:30 p.m. — A lecture by University of Southern California Professor of Art History Kimia Shahi titled “Project Documerica and the Environmental Image.”
- March 28, 3–4 p.m. — A discussion circle for the Climate Café, a climate change–centered initiative of The Claremont Colleges’ Office of Consortial Academic Collaboration. The discussion will be led by Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science Katie Purvis-Roberts and Chloé Vettier.
- March 28, 5–6:30 p.m. — A lecture by University of Southern California Professor of French and Comparative Literature Natania Meeker titled “Plants and Sex.”
The exhibition’s organizers would like to give special acknowledgment to Director of the Clark Humanities Museum and Professor of French Studies Julin Everett, “without whom this exhibition would not exist.”