Sat June 27, 2026
Amanda Marchand & Leah Sobsey: This Earthen Door
at Traywick Gallery
(show closing)
This Earthen Door is an ongoing collaboration by Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey that reimagines Emily Dickinson's herbarium, the 19th century book of pressed plants she made as a teen and developed into a record of over 400 specimens. Now housed at Harvard's Houghton Library and too fragile to be handled, the herbarium survives primarily through digital access, a record of careful study and a reminder of what can be lost over time. Marchand and Sobsey take this important archive as their starting point, engaging it through contemporary photographic, environmental, and cultural inquiry.
The project began over five years ago, when the artists grew selected species from Dickinson's plant list in their own gardens in Quebec and North Carolina and used those plants to remake pages from the herbarium. The resulting works are created using anthotype, a camera-less photographic process from the 1840s that produces images from plant pigments exposed to sunlight over prolonged periods, from days to months. These images carry the trace of the plants themselves, as well as the time and care required to produce them.
Moving between photography, botany, and archival research, the collaboration is shaped by the artists' shared history as students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Working from Dickinson's original project, Marchand and Sobsey bring her practice into the present, placing it in relation to current environmental conditions and to the long-standing contributions of women working across art and science.
As the work has been exhibited across the country, it has expanded into a broader "21st century herbarium," shaped through engagement with botanists, plants and communities at various sites. For the exhibition at Traywick Contemporary, a collaboration with the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (PRNSA) extends this work to California, where a new piece is planned using both native and invasive plants to draw attention to their conservation efforts in restoring native ecologies.
The exhibition presents a selection from a larger body of over 50 works, with the complete series available through the accompanying collector's print box.
show less
The project began over five years ago, when the artists grew selected species from Dickinson's plant list in their own gardens in Quebec and North Carolina and used those plants to remake pages from the herbarium. The resulting works are created using anthotype, a camera-less photographic process from the 1840s that produces images from plant pigments exposed to sunlight over prolonged periods, from days to months. These images carry the trace of the plants themselves, as well as the time and care required to produce them.
Moving between photography, botany, and archival research, the collaboration is shaped by the artists' shared history as students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Working from Dickinson's original project, Marchand and Sobsey bring her practice into the present, placing it in relation to current environmental conditions and to the long-standing contributions of women working across art and science.
As the work has been exhibited across the country, it has expanded into a broader "21st century herbarium," shaped through engagement with botanists, plants and communities at various sites. For the exhibition at Traywick Contemporary, a collaboration with the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (PRNSA) extends this work to California, where a new piece is planned using both native and invasive plants to draw attention to their conservation efforts in restoring native ecologies.
The exhibition presents a selection from a larger body of over 50 works, with the complete series available through the accompanying collector's print box.
This Earthen Door is an ongoing collaboration by Amanda Marchand and Leah Sobsey that reimagines Emily Dickinson's herbarium, the 19th century book of pressed plants she made as a teen and developed into a record of over 400 specimens. Now housed at Harvard's Houghton Library and too fragile to be handled, the herbarium survives primarily through digital access, a record of careful study and a reminder of what can be lost over time. Marchand and Sobsey take this important archive as their starting point, engaging it through contemporary photographic, environmental, and cultural inquiry.
The project began over five years ago, when the artists grew selected species from Dickinson's plant list in their own gardens in Quebec and North Carolina and used those plants to remake pages from the herbarium. The resulting works are created using anthotype, a camera-less photographic process from the 1840s that produces images from plant pigments exposed to sunlight over prolonged periods, from days to months. These images carry the trace of the plants themselves, as well as the time and care required to produce them.
Moving between photography, botany, and archival research, the collaboration is shaped by the artists' shared history as students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Working from Dickinson's original project, Marchand and Sobsey bring her practice into the present, placing it in relation to current environmental conditions and to the long-standing contributions of women working across art and science.
As the work has been exhibited across the country, it has expanded into a broader "21st century herbarium," shaped through engagement with botanists, plants and communities at various sites. For the exhibition at Traywick Contemporary, a collaboration with the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (PRNSA) extends this work to California, where a new piece is planned using both native and invasive plants to draw attention to their conservation efforts in restoring native ecologies.
The exhibition presents a selection from a larger body of over 50 works, with the complete series available through the accompanying collector's print box.
read more
The project began over five years ago, when the artists grew selected species from Dickinson's plant list in their own gardens in Quebec and North Carolina and used those plants to remake pages from the herbarium. The resulting works are created using anthotype, a camera-less photographic process from the 1840s that produces images from plant pigments exposed to sunlight over prolonged periods, from days to months. These images carry the trace of the plants themselves, as well as the time and care required to produce them.
Moving between photography, botany, and archival research, the collaboration is shaped by the artists' shared history as students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Working from Dickinson's original project, Marchand and Sobsey bring her practice into the present, placing it in relation to current environmental conditions and to the long-standing contributions of women working across art and science.
As the work has been exhibited across the country, it has expanded into a broader "21st century herbarium," shaped through engagement with botanists, plants and communities at various sites. For the exhibition at Traywick Contemporary, a collaboration with the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (PRNSA) extends this work to California, where a new piece is planned using both native and invasive plants to draw attention to their conservation efforts in restoring native ecologies.
The exhibition presents a selection from a larger body of over 50 works, with the complete series available through the accompanying collector's print box.
show less
Date/Times:
The Best Events
Every Week in Your Inbox
From Our Sponsors
UPCOMING EVENTS
Great suggestion! We'll be in touch.
Event reviewed successfully.