Illuminated Histories

Illuminated Histories was a collaborative installation created for the grand re-opening of the Peale Museum in September of 2022.  I partnered with TU Coordinator of art education Dr. Diane Kuthy to create translucent artworks inspired by the museum’s rich history and its place in the broader context of natural history collections.  The artworks sought to illuminate these histories through their display on a vintage light table, which we refurbished and re-wired with the help of my husband and fellow artist, Donnie Carlo.

The Peale family played a major role in shaping early American museums: they introduced the technique of displaying taxidermized animals against painted backdrops, were early pioneers in the use of gas lighting in museums, led America's first scientific expedition to exume the bones of a "mammoth" skeleton, and founded the Peale Museum in Baltimore, the first building constructed for the purpose of housing a museum.  

Alex's Work: Shadowboxes and Animations

I created four shadowboxes inspired by the Peale Museum’s place in the broader context of natural history collections, curiosity cabinets, and early taxidermy and preservation practices.  Each shadowbox was paired with a corresponding animation that brought the items in the shadowbox to life.  Viewers accessed the animations through QR codes on interactive cards displayed on the side of the light table. 

 These artworks consider the questions: 

Shadowboxes

Super Flower Blood Moon
This shadowbox pays homage to a curious creature - the Atlantic horseshoe crab.  Horseshoe crabs are living fossils, have blue blood, and are completely harmless.  During full and new moons in early summer, thousands of horseshoe crabs assemble on Delaware Bay seashores to breed.  The title - Super Flower Blood Moon - refers to a lunar event that occurred while I was observing them on the Delaware shore on May 26th, 2021; it was a super moon (the moon was closest in its approach to earth), a flower moon (a full moon in May), and a blood moon (named for the reddish hue that the moon takes on during a lunar eclipse).  During their breeding seasons, horseshoe crabs collectively lay millions of eggs and attract migratory shorebirds including the Red Knot, who are dependent on the eggs as major food source.  Horseshoe crabs are threatened by overharvesting for bait as well as for a compound in their blood used in the development of vaccines, and thus migratory shorebirds are threatened by proxy.  A goal of this shadowbox is to raise awareness of these amazing creatures and advocate for sustainable harvesting practices and protective legislation.  

Horseshoe crabs were unknown in Europe until the exploration of the New World and Asia, but after their discovery they were common item in cabinets of curiosity.  Since horseshoe crabs were often sourced from The Molucca Islands in Southeast Asia, they were commonly listed in cabinet catalogues as Moluccan Crabs.

Corresponding Animation:
The animation shows a mermaid's purse, whelk egg case, and a whelk shell washing up on the Delaware shore before the sun sets.  The moon, represented by a moon snail shell, rises from a black hollyhock and triggers the emergence of horseshoe crabs from the water.  Materials: pressed and dried flowers, feathers, pebbles, seashells, vellum, acrylic paint, molted horseshow crab shells, rhinestones, and sequins.
See the animation here. 

Brood X 

This shadowbox represents the life cycle of brood X cicadas, a group of species of periodical cicadas who spend 17 years underground.  Along the east coast in the spring of 2021, brood x cicada nymphs emerged en masse to metamorphose, mate, lay their eggs in tree branches, and die.  During their brief time above ground, they were omnipresent in Maryland, making themselves known through their massive swarms and deafening songs.  This work was in part inspired by Benjamin Banneker, an 18th century Baltimore-area African American mathematician, scientist, naturalist, and astronomer, who observed cicadas in 1749.  He was among the first American scientists to document brood x cicadas and describe their cyclic nature.

Corresponding Animation:
The corresponding animation illustrates the complete lifecycle of the brood x cicadas.  Materials: dirt, pressed and dried flowers, stones, beach glass, cicada molts, cicada wings, cicadas, vellum, bark, leaves.  Partially animated on a lightbox.  See the animation here. 

Orchidelerium:
The Orchidelerium shadowbox was inspired by botanical features of natural history collections and women's role in early botany.  In the 1700s, botany had a strong feminine association due to women’s relationship with plants through gardening, cooking, and flower arranging. In the Victorian era, as the field of botany grew and became more highly regarded, women were excluded from its serious study.  Despite this, it was acceptable for women to display exotic plants in their gardens, collect preserved flowers in books called herbariums, and create botanical illustrations and artworks.  Through the contemporary reexamination of female botanical artists like Anna Atkins, historians are discovering the contributions women made to scientific understanding through artmaking.

Orchidelerium was also informed by colonialism’s role in British botany.  During the Victorian era, the field of botany was booming due to the import of exotic plants from the British colonies.  The flowers in this shadowbox were selected to symbolize the role of colonization in British collection and include daffodils, a flower native to English gardens; tobacco, which fueled the need for slave labor and indentured servitude in colonial America; and orchids, a species so sought after that the mania surrounding their discovery and collection was referred to as orchideleirum.

Corresponding Animation:
The animation shows the collection and transplanting of orchids from the wild into a Victorian-era glasshouse.  Because orchids often did not survive after being collected, the animation also shows their disappearance from the glasshouse.  Materials: cut paper, acrylic paint, pressed plants and flowers, bark, vellum.  Partially animated on a lightbox. 
See the animation here. 

Serpentes Vanitas
Serpentes Vanitas uses symbolic objects to represent the cycle of life.  The snakeskin represents transformation and growth, but within the snakeskin is a small snake skeleton, a reminder of the snake’s mortality. In the center of the artwork, encircled by the snake spine, is a rabbit skull, which represents the snake's prey.  The butterfly at the top of the artwork represents new life, and the beetle, a decomposer, at the bottom of the artwork, represents death. The imagery of the butterfly and the skull are mimicked in the vellum and transparency cutouts.  This shadowbox was inspired by Vanitas themes present in some early cabinets of curiosities, in which the objects selected were representative of mortality. They included items like skulls and butterflies which represented the transience of life.  

Corresponding Animation:
The Vanitas animation utilized the beetle from the shadowbox and themes and symbols representative of mortality – a ticking clock, a beetle being devoured by a carnivorous plant, and a candle melting.  Materials: bark, butterflies, beetles, pressed and dried plants, cut paper, leaves, candle.  Partially animated on a lightbox.
See the animation here. 

Animation Stills

Super Flower Blood Moon

Brood X

Orchidelerium

Sepentes Vanitas

Interactive Cards

These interactive cards were hung on the side of the metallic light table with magnetic hooks.  The front of the cards included a QR code to access the animations, and the back of the cards contained additional information about each shadowbox.  

Process

Early curiosity cabinets were created at a time when there was no distinct divide between disciplines and the boundaries between art objects and natural ephemera were fluid.  Cabinets displayed artificialia (human-made items) and naturalia (items from nature) together and were arranged to stimulate curiosity, wonder, and dialogue.  I connected this to design philosophies and purposes of the Peale Museum in Baltimore; at the time of its inception in 1813, it was known as an art, science, nature, and picture gallery, and items were selected and arranged to educate, entertain, and amuse visitors.

I sought to emulate these philosophies when designing the shadowboxes.  I displayed naturalia such as horseshoe crab and cicada molts, cicada wings, pressed flowers, snakeskin, insects, and a rabbit skull.  Each specimen was treated with rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, and more fragile specimens were sprayed with a laquer.  The horseshoe crab molts were meticulously cleaned with brushes and scrapers, and the snakeskin was treated with modpodge, pressed between wax paper and heavy books, cut into pieces, and rearranged to form a serpentine curve. 

The transparency and vellum cuts, which were designed in Adobe Illustrator and cut on a Cricut, represented the art objects, or artificialia.  The infusion of natural materials with technology (the QR codes, digital arts software, the stop animation app, and the Cricut) contemporize the traditional curiosity cabinet and extend its reach beyond a physical space and into the virtual realm.  

Diane's Work:

Diane's work focuses on illuminating several moments in the storied history of the Peale family of artists, naturalists and innovators, and their pioneering techniques in museology.  The Peale family were intimately connected to political figures and power structures prominent in the founding of the United States, and their work reflects the myths of American cultural identity and the history of colonialism.  Inspired by window illuminations using cut profiles, and a variety of translucent materials, Diane depicted a 19th century interior gallery space. Each artifact portrayed in the imagined exhibition has a number with a corresponding label that asks viewers to consider the object’s significance and cultural context.