In Unearthing, Stirratt explores how natural and cultural objects are presented in collections and museum settings, and how we preserve, classify, and display them.

From Stirratt: “I have visited many natural history, herbaria and medical museums in Europe and the US with the aim of understanding their objectives, collecting impulses, and labelling practices. With similar intent, I visited several regional historical sites and collections, including the Workingmen’s Institute in New Harmony, the Indiana University Paleontology Collection, and Angel Mounds. The resulting photographs and objects demonstrate the sometimes underestimated importance of local and regional history within the broader museum sphere.

Collections and museums inform us about the world we live in, record the past and provide material memory across generations. Unearthing is an attempt to impose order on an unordered world, drawing upon hazy memory, inexact connections, and interpreted histories.  The process of unearthing objects, both physically and metaphorically, can broaden our experience of the world, stimulating imagination and wonder about what we have around us.”  -Betsy Stirratt

About the artist

Betsy Stirratt’s creative practice focuses on themes about nature, collections and the environment.  She is the Founding Director of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University Bloomington where she has curated exhibitions and published catalogs since 1987. Exhibiting her own work widely since 1983, solo exhibitions include La Maladie at The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia and the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago and Veiled Taxonomies at the Center for Book Arts in New York. Her work has been included in group exhibits at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and White Columns and Art in General in New York among others. She is the recipient of a Visual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Made possible by The Indy Arts Council, The City of Indianapolis, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation.