Voracious: Cycles of Consumption

Human consumption devours all. Animals, plants, art and culture, the environment, and even our own bodies become part of the omnivorous diet of human history. Voracious: Cycles of Consumption groups artworks selected from the College’s special collections to consider the gastronomical pleasures of eating, alongside the simultaneous and subconscious pains of extracting, digesting, and depleting natural and cultural resources. By attending to these unseen impacts of our appetite, this exhibit aims to implicate the often capitalist, colonizing, and cannibalistic motivations for consumption. What happens to the cycle of consumption as resources become increasingly scarce? Is there a way out? Can we begin again?

Voracious: Cycles of Consumption is curated by Devin Lawson, Marguerite Packard, and Yuzhu Wang, with the help of Alice Xie, Charlie Taylor, Flora Arnsberger, Louis Mainwaring Foster, and Marisa Lawrence. It was designed by Nathanael Roesch, PhD ‘17. This exhibition is presented in conjunction with the 15th Biennial Symposium of the Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics, and History of Art at Bryn Mawr College. We extend our deepest gratitude to Carrie Robbins, PhD ‘13, whose vision and curatorial mentorship helped guide every stage of this exhibition’s development, and to Astrid Lindenlauf, whose guidance has been invaluable. We also thank the Special Collections staff—Allison Mills, Janelle Rebel, Marianne Hansen, and Marianne Weldon—for their expertise, care, and assistance with exhibition research and logistics. Finally, we are grateful to Erica Collin, Izzy Martin, Mary Anna Ball, and Seth Levin for organizing the symposium.

The exhibition is supported by the Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics, and History of Art, as well as the Friends of the Bryn Mawr College Libraries.

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