Museum Exhibit: Jannette Vanderhoop - Treasure Box

“Imagine a time when the Americas were being taken, pirates were active the world over, Europe was collecting curiosities of the 'other,' nature was being explored down to the most intimate details and natural objects were displayed in natural history galleries - including but not limited to arts and artifacts of the “other.” Where somewhere on a faraway shore, my ancestor beached her canoe with no idea of what was coming over the horizon. The ships, the world, technology, advancement, death, progress, politics, the founding of America, the new world charged righteously through, touting the banner of manifest destiny! There was a mad grab on a world scale for all matter of treasures. Ironically, what is happening now shows that history repeats itself- a grab for money and power and resources-as we rapidly approach this new way of being.”

This exhibition features a series of found-object ‘treasure’ boxes created by Islander Jannette Vanderhoop over the course of a decade that, along with Jannette’s original poetry, explore these themes and follow a story “from the conquering of the world, starting from the beginning of creation.”