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: Jack McDonald (AB’25, Public Policy & Environmental Science)
Label One
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Cochineal Dye Extract, 21st century
25 grams
Joel Snyder Materials Collection, 2020.56
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This jar contains cochineal pigment. Cochineal pigment or carmine is a natural colorant that is derived from the Cochineal insect, indigenous to South America. These insects produce a carminic acid, a bright red material intended to discourage predation. Evidence of human use of this acid for dyes dates back to 2000 BCE. Following the Spanish colonization of South America, cochineal pigment became an important trade commodity, rivaling even gold and silver. The pigment was popularized due to its unique red color which was otherwise not available in Europe. With the rise of synthetic dyes, the laborious process for manufacturing cochineal pigment became prohibitively expensive. However, more recent concerns about the safety of synthetic dyes has led to a resurgence in the popularity of cochineal dyes and even their inclusion in food.
Cochineal pigment’s importance as a commodity also underscores the importance of color to both artistic and capitalistic ends. When Europeans became aware of its existence, it quickly proliferated through art and textiles. Clothing bearing a stark carmine red became immensely desirable and art quickly began deploying it across a variety of subject depictions. In fact, cochineal pigment can be found in some Van Gogh paintings.
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This object label is intended to deploy some of the methodology used by Nicole Shukin in Animal Capital. Shukin invokes “Bhabha’s theory of colonial mimicry as “the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” to formulate a conception of animal capital where capitalism attempts to conflate natural entities with the commodity in what she refers to as a “ring of tautology”. Shukin’s formulation of animal capital is extremely jargon centered. It focuses on the idea of rendering which encapsulates both the literal rendering of animal remains and the rendering of images that take advantage of nature’s connotations for the furthering of capital. This label attempts to guide the reader in the direction of Shukin’s method without explicit theoretical reference. This description attempts to first establish the role of cochineal pigment as a commodity, with a particular emphasis on its colonial roots, and then moves into a discussion of cochineal pigments’ role as a way to add color to both art and commodities. Cochineal pigment is in some ways a literal example of the metaphorizing use of nature that Shukin highlights. The color of this natural insect was made synonymous with commodity, even the name of the insect was subverted into the name of a tradable derivative commodity. Further its natural characteristics were used to prop up textile commodities. The color became a tool for the creation of new symbols through artistic endeavors. Fundamental to Shukin’s argument is that the natural world cannot become totally synonymous with capital; the relationship can only ever be approximate. This label attempts to allude to this shortcoming by highlighting the displacement of cochineal pigment with synthetic pigment.
Label Two
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Dactylopius coccus (Cochineal) remains, 21st century
25 grams
Joel Snyder Materials Collection, 2020.56
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This mortar contains the remains of thousands of individual cochineals. Cochineals are an insect native South America where they make their homes on prickly cacti. To protect themselves from predators they produce carminic acid which gives their insides a red color. Humans learned this and now harvest these insects to create pigment and dye. We can’t know the stories of these individuals, but they could have been born in Peru where they hatched from eggs laid by a lineage of cochineals thousands of years old. They may have emerged as nymphs into a sunny arid world and began to climb higher on their cactus. From there they may have taken to the wind and found new cacti to make homes. Once landed they could latch their mouths onto the cactus and taste the sweet flavor of the cactus. Though they may not realize it, their entire lives have taken place on a farm prepared for their slaughter. As they reach old age (for a cochineal about two months old), they may have been harvested by hand and then boiled alive so that their bodies could be made into dye. Some ended up here but others may have ended up in your food.
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This object label attempts to deploy Saidiya Hartman’s method of critical fabulation to an organism that is somewhat removed from the obvious primary interest of her work, slavery. This label arose because of the parallel between archives that bring some people existence only in relation to violence and the existence of these animal individuals that have been deindividualized into a tool for humans. The only record of their lives exists in the form of this pigment. From that perspective, this label relies on the subjunctive to tell one story of the lives of these insects before being made into pigment in the same manner that Hartman articulates to present a version of a life story. At each of the subjunctive moments of the label, there are other unspoken but just as viable narratives that could be constructed. These cochineals could be from Mexico instead of Peru, they may have been introduced artificially rather than hatched on site (this is a common practice in cochineal farming), there are a variety of different ways that the insects are killed. The label attempts to create one fabula for the insects’ lives while acknowledging the possibility for others. In this way and through critical fabulation, the label attempts to give a story beyond violence to these insects killed in droves to create this pigment.
Bibliography
“Cochineal.” Harvard Museums of Science Culture, hmsc.harvard.edu/online-exhibits/cochineal/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2024.
Miller, Brittney. “Scientists Are Making Cochineal, a Red Dye from Bugs, in the Lab.” smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 29 Mar. 2022.
Nelson, Jireh. “Cochineal: The Long History of a Bug.” The Humanities Collaborative, University of Texas El Paso, humanitiescollaborative.utep.edu/project-blog/cochineal. Accessed 2 Feb. 2024.
Shack, Elizabeth, et al. “Modern Uses and Controversies.” The Perfect Pigment, Drew University, theperfectpigment.com. Accessed 2 Feb. 2024.