On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Stewart-Swift Research Center, the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History invited an international network of collage artists to engage with historic material in the archive and to create a folio of collage prints that reflect on the idea of community in a 21st century world. Five artists who participated in the project did so from Europe. What did their unique perspective draw from the archive? Polish artist Marta Janik was taken with images of trees she found perusing Stewart-Swift Research Center material found in the virtual collection of the University of Vermont’s Landscape Change Program. Her collage asks us to think about the role trees play in our communities. Based in Scotland Italian artist Jack Ravi collages the myriad of stories held in the archives as a way of juxtaposing the complex, rich history of remembering with the simultaneous fact of forgetting and obfuscation. To update an early twentieth century postcard that imagines the future of Middlebury, Irish artist Anthony D Kelly combines advertisements for Phoenix Clothes, Dexter Shoes, and Otis Elevator Company from the 1970s with a postcard of Main Street Middlebury found in the Stewart-Swift Research Center archives. Moved by her own experience of the war in Ukraine, Lilya Chavaga considers the social aspects of food by collaging elements of a modern grocery store into a 1900 photograph of R. S. Benedict’s Store at 5 Merchants Row. Inspired by Henry Sheldon’s 1884 Memorial Chair, which is made of wooden fragments with historical significance, Danish artist Klara Espersen imagines a monument in Otter Creek made of memorial items found in the archive.  Join these artists and project curator, Ric Kasini Kadour for a conversation about European perspectives on Vermont history and place. Presented in partnership with KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE.

This program is supported by Walter Cerf Community Fund and Stewart-Swift Research Center donors.