Watching The Seasons Change

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Dates: June 4 – September 17, 2022

Location: Museum of the White Mountains

When we think of the seasons changing, we all expect certain signs: the bright red of the sugar maple, the crackle of frozen puddles under foot, the sweet smell of fresh growth as the snow melts, the burble of the brook under a thick canopy of leaves. This pattern becomes more complicated as the markers of change disappear. The cycles we anticipate shift. As the seasons change in the Northeast, what will our autumns look like with fewer sugar maples? What will it sound like as they are replaced by oaks that hold their leaves much longer? What will winter be without frozen ponds?  

This exhibition brings together a plurality of voices that span 300 years of appreciating and adapting to the seasons in the White Mountains: Abenaki basketmakers joining with foresters to protect the brown ash tree; artists immersing themselves in experimental environmental research; scientists at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, the Mount Washington Observatory, and the Appalachian Mountain Club building a robust understanding of climate change; painters traveling to these mountains to record their beauty; and beadworkers preserving and reviving traditional patterns and skills. These makers and many others are examining and interpreting our surroundings as they watch the seasons change.