ELEMENTAL THINKING:
Water, Earth, Air, Fire
Fall 2025 @ Kinney Center
Throughout the term, there will be four exhibits (Water, Earth, Air, Fire) at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies. Each exhibit runs in conjunction with our course syllabus and is designed to enrich and inspire your elemental engagements.
We have borrowed books from across the Five Colleges, many of which are rarely or never on display. This is a unique opportunity for you to discover elemental thinking as it was transpiring inside books and art across a variety of literatures and musical forms (there is an audio component to each exhibit as well). You are required to visit all four exhibits, at your convenience. While visiting, you are welcome to explore more of the Kinney Center's rare book collections, join our Renaissance of the Earth project [link], and use the reading room and gallery as your study space.
Enjoy!
Other Related Talks, Events, Exhibits, Symposia
Fall 2025
Globe4Globe Shakespeare & Environmental Justice Symposium [link / playlist of recorded short talks]
September 12 - 13
Listening Room Concert: Rooted in Harmony: Elemental Music of Trees, Plants, and the Earth [concert program link; livestream]
Tue September 30 @ 11:00AM
(Bezanson Recital Hall, Bromery Center for the Arts East Wing, UMass)
Rick A. López, “Rooted in Place: Botany, Indigeneity, and Art in the Construction of Mexican Nature, 1570-1914”
Thu October 23 @ 4:30PM
(Kinney Center, 650 E. Pleasant St, Amherst, MA) [map]
Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts Boston: “Rachel Ruysch: Artist, Naturalist, and Pioneer” [about]
On view August 23 - December 7, 2025
Exhibition at Hampshire College Art Gallery: "Sara Smith: Sugar Maple Glacial Lake Station" [about]
On view September 2 - November 7, 2025
Exhibition at MassMoca “Belly of a Glacier” [about]
On view through December 2025
Online Exhibition at John Carter Brown Library, Brown University (Providence, RI): “Elemental: Crafting Books from Nature” [link]
FUTURE EVENTS
Spring/Summer 2026: Worcester Art Museum: https://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/a-weather-eye/
Spring/Summer 2026: Worcester Art Museum: https://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/fever-dreams-of-a-cool-breathed-earth/
2026: AIR year of Elements (incl Feb 12 event around Beaufort Scales)
2027: FIRE year of Elements