University of Kansas (Spencer Museum of Art)

The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas will complete the development, installation, and opening of the exhibition, "Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World." The grant will support costs for the exhibition's installation, a range of educational programs for schools and the public, and an accompanying catalog, which will document the project and include brief texts by artists, curators, biologists, ecologists, and philosophers. The exhibition will explore humankind's deep connection and fascination with the plant kingdom through works from the museum's collections, as well as loaned and commissioned works. Specific themes will include artists' study of plant forms, including the mathematical underpinnings of plant morphology; historic and contemporary plant lore; art dealing with botanical aspects of ecological sustainability; and plants in a post-human world expressed by bio-mechanical plant hybrids.