Two years in the making, Rooted in Nature: Collecting Histories at UVM presents a wide variety of global art and material culture objects that engage with notions of nature and our living world. I co-curated this exhibition with Margaret Tamulonis, the Fleming's collection manager, and Zoe Alpert, our collections and curatorial intern. Our goal throughout the project was to empower students to take an active role in co-creating exhibition content.

To realize that aim, we collaborated with Nicole Phelps, UVM Professor of History, and seven graduate students enrolled in her World's Fairs seminar on an object-based and archival research project. In addition to co-authoring a gallery booklet, the students shared their research with members of the UVM community at a public forum.

Charting the growth of the Fleming's collections since the 1880s, Rooted in Nature presents objects that were collected because of their perceived connection to nature. Together the works ask us to consider how artists engage with the natural world, how collections shape knowledge, and how categories like “nature” have been applied to people. And contemporary works demonstrate a new focus of the Fleming’s collecting: art that amplifies diverse perspectives on our living world.