By Steve Scarpa
Fish, birds, insects, and butterflies – indeed, all of nature – take on an ethereal quality in our newest display, Picturing at the Peabody, located on the second floor. The photo gallery was developed by Yale students in a collaboration between the Peabody and the Yale School of Art, using the Museum as the inspiration for their artwork.
Their artistic exploration of the Museum’s collections offers novel perspectives on human interaction with nature and the environment.
Nature isn’t always what it seems – beauty in nature can be performative, and often what we think we know isn’t really the case. For example, the fierce looking horns of the rhinoceros beetle are tools for digging, not aggression. An idyllic spot shown in our Connecticut dioramas is less stunning in real life. We can see faces in rocks. Nature forces us to examine who we are and what we believe.
Picturing at the Peabody is a fresh take on the Museum’s collections, challenging our viewers’ assumptions and highlighting the natural world in new ways.
Photos by Andy Melien.
