About
Objectified: Methods in Environmental Humanities is an exhibition featuring selections from the Joel Snyder Materials Collection and beyond. The materials and objects included in the exhibition represent a reckoning with some of the planet’s most pressing concerns, from climate change to biodiversity loss, through humanistic inquiry.
Staged in the CWAC Exhibitions space on the 2nd floor of the Cochrane-Woods Art Center during Winter Quarter 2024 in collaboration with Dr. Jessica Landau and students in the Methods in Environmental Humanities seminar offered by the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU), the exhibition foregrounds an interdisciplinary lens through which the contributors approach the environmental humanities. Students interrogate how humanistic disciplines such as art history, Indigenous studies, animal studies, comparative literature, and history serve as emerging methods through which we might understand the environment. Collectively, the student curators contemplate our everyday relationships with the built environment, natural resources, and stolen land through humanistic lines of inquiry.
To demonstrate how an interpretation can change depending on the methodological approach used or theoretical lens applied to an object, student curators were asked to produce two distinct labels using at least two different methodologies. To read both labels, as well as student explanations of their methodological approaches, click on an image from the exhibition.
Objectified: Methods in Environmental Humanities is co-curated by Dr. Jessica Landau and student curators from her Winter 2024 Methods in the Environmental Humanities seminar: Yufei Chen (AB’26, Comparative Literature), Jess Senger (AB’24, Environmental Science [major] & Environmental and Urban Studies [minor]), Damary Alvarez (AB’25, Global Studies & Human Rights), Jack McDonald (AB’25, Public Policy & Environmental Science), Mariana Reed (AB’26, Environment, Geography and Urbanization [major] & Education [minor]), Justin Daab (Fellow, Leadership & Society Initiative), and Owen Castle (AB’25, Math & Environmental and Urban Studies).
About
Objectified: Methods in Environmental Humanities is an exhibition featuring selections from the Joel Snyder Materials Collection and beyond. The materials and objects included in the exhibition represent a reckoning with some of the planet’s most pressing concerns, from climate change to biodiversity loss, through humanistic inquiry.
Staged in the CWAC Exhibitions space on the 2nd floor of the Cochrane-Woods Art Center during Winter Quarter 2024 in collaboration with Dr. Jessica Landau and students in the Methods in Environmental Humanities seminar offered by the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU), the exhibition foregrounds an interdisciplinary lens through which the contributors approach the environmental humanities. Students interrogate how humanistic disciplines such as art history, Indigenous studies, animal studies, comparative literature, and history serve as emerging methods through which we might understand the environment. Collectively, the student curators contemplate our everyday relationships with the built environment, natural resources, and stolen land through humanistic lines of inquiry.
To demonstrate how an interpretation can change depending on the methodological approach used or theoretical lens applied to an object, student curators were asked to produce two distinct labels using at least two different methodologies. To read both labels, as well as student explanations of their methodological approaches, click on an image from the exhibition.
Objectified: Methods in Environmental Humanities is co-curated by Dr. Jessica Landau and student curators from her Winter 2024 Methods in the Environmental Humanities seminar: Yufei Chen (AB’26, Comparative Literature), Jess Senger (AB’24, Environmental Science [major] & Environmental and Urban Studies [minor]), Damary Alvarez (AB’25, Global Studies & Human Rights), Jack McDonald (AB’25, Public Policy & Environmental Science), Mariana Reed (AB’26, Environment, Geography and Urbanization [major] & Education [minor]), Justin Daab (Fellow, Leadership & Society Initiative), and Owen Castle (AB’25, Math & Environmental and Urban Studies).
Curator: Damary Alvarez (AB’25, Global Studies & Human Rights)
Label One
—
Fred Miller
American artist, 1868-1936
printed by Joel Snyder (American artist, born 1940)
Sits Down Spotted Horse (aka Where She Sits, also identified as Agatha Garner), an Apsáalooké Woman, on Horse, ca. 1898-1910, printed ca. 1980
Gelatin silver print from original glass plate negative
5 x 7 in (image), 6 1/2 x 8 in (paper)
Joel Snyder Materials Collection, 2021.30
—
In the late 19th century, Fred E. Miller, a civil service clerk for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, embarked on a journey to gain a wider cultural understanding of the Apsáalooké Nation. As Miller traversed the rural and open Great Plains, he was drawn by Agatha Garner’s commanding presence and sought to encapsulate her heroism through the lens. Agatha, perched atop a majestic horse, radiates strength in traditional Apsáalooké attire, brandishing a lance and shield adorned with fringe. Their initial interactions were marked by a silent understanding; transcending words. Agatha, feeling hesitancy towards Miller’s foreign intrusion, eventually invited his curious mind into the tapestry of Apsáalooké life. Through Garner’s invitation, the two forged a unique bond, weaving a narrative of mutual respect. As the seasons passed, Miller became more than an observer; he became family. The photograph captures a moment where Agatha gazes directly at the camera, bridging the gap that had previously separated the tribal nation from the Western outside. Miller’s endorsement by the tribal nation not only brought the Apsáalooké tribe into the spotlight within the realm of Native American studies but also played a pivotal role in shaping his decision to embrace life as a rancher in his later years.
—
In this specific object label, I employed the method of critical fabulation in the hope of answering Hartman’s question: “To imagine what could have been?” When I first encountered this image, I immediately began to contextualize the scenery in terms of Native American history. Conclusively, I acknowledged the history of forced displacement, assimilation, and elimination of Native Americans systematically achieved by settlers. To this timeline, I questioned where this left the photographer in terms of their contribution, or lack thereof, to advancing this specific colonial project. Furthermore, who was this photographer and what was their intent in encapsulating this woman’s life?
To remedy this question, I felt a sympathetic urge to fill in the gaps in the story. As Hartman details, there is a temptation to “provide closure where there is none”. However, unlike Hartman who chose not to trespass the boundaries of archival history, I sought to disrupt notions of assimilation, oppressive “otherness” and mechanisms of divergence that were written into the archives of Native American studies. Admittedly, there was not a complete departure away from archival records in my object label as I felt that Fred Miller’s occupation and experience with the tribe were important to consider. In the narration of the interaction between Agatha Garner and Fred Miller, I imagined a world where they were mutually respective of each other’s cultural backgrounds. I envisioned a world where Agatha Garner’s life was admired and incorporated into history in a manner that was not solely focused on trauma or violence. I chose to allude to Miller’s membership in the tribal nation as an exceptional case of a harmonious relationship that can arise from settler and Native American engagements.
Label Two
—
Fred Miller
American artist, 1868-1936
printed by Joel Snyder (American artist, born 1940)
Sits Down Spotted Horse (aka Where She Sits, also identified as Agatha Garner), an Apsáalooké Woman, on Horse, ca. 1898-1910, printed ca. 1980
Gelatin silver print from original glass plate negative
5 x 7 in (image), 6 1/2 x 8 in (paper)
Joel Snyder Materials Collection, 2021.30
—
This evocative photograph captures Agatha Garner interposed in a vast web of interdependent relationships with her surrounding environment. Adorned in traditional attire astride a horse, wielding a lance and shield resonating with fringe, Garner becomes a poignant symbol of symbiotic connections.
The domestication of horses, the utilization of animal skin, and the presence of a tipi in the photograph are reflective of an evolutionary journey with nature. Horses, once introduced by Europeans, forever impacted the Apsáalooké’s nomadic lifestyle and their relationship with the land. The grass on the vast landscape of Montana nurtures the horses and in turn, the horses provide a means for Native Americans to travel. The tipi in the backdrop serves as a symbol of indigenous structures deeply rooted in the cultures of the Great Plains tribes, woven together with buffalo hide. This profound companionship between the Apsáalooké people and the buffalo illustrates the interconnectedness of human and non-human lives.
Amidst these shared existences, Miller and Garner exchange bodies and words; stories and worlds entailing human progression alongside the changing environment. The choice to suspend Garner in a scenery overtaken by human, plant, and animal integration prompts viewers to extend far beyond our human-centric perspectives.
—
Utilizing Tsing’s and Donna Haraway’s conception of companion species, I intended to expose Fred Miller’s artistic choice in capturing Agatha Garner and her multiple interactions with the surrounding environment. Most of these interactions are very noticeable, such as the prevalence of horses and animal skin on the shield Garner is holding. However, other interactions may not jump out to viewers without the knowledge of a specific historical context. Additionally, I sought to expand beyond the human-centric understanding of how individuals interact with nature. More specifically, I wanted to reveal how there aren’t unilateral and one-sided interactions in the image but instead a web of mutually beneficial, co-evolving, and reciprocal relationships.
To adequately dissect these relationships, I focused on Tsing’s exploration of the domestication of animals and in this case, the domestication of horses to travel. By connecting the horse not solely to the human, but also to the land from which they feed, I sought to align with Tsing’s notion of multispecies landscapes in which everything is connected. An alternative interaction in the picture that might have gone unnoticed is that of the tipi, a shelter indigenous to the tribes of the Great Plains. Through conducting outside research, I learned that teepees are made out of buffalo hide. Though elements of anthropocentrism are prevalent in the use of animal skin for the service of humans, the use of buffalo hides points to a symbiotic relationship that underscores material dependency on the buffalo and thus relationships of coexistence. Additionally, it felt important to contextualize the cultural exchange of settlers and Native Americans to highlight how there also exists interdependence among humans.