Exhibition - Fatal Flora: Poisonous Revenge Narratives

From Sept. 28 through Jan. 30, 2025, the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies will showcase “Fatal Flora: Poisonous Revenge Narratives,” the latest exhibit in the Renaissance of the Earth Artist in Residence program, at the center at 650 East Pleasant Street.

The reception and exhibit are free and open to the public, and free parking is available at the center. Following the opening reception, the exhibit may be viewed during the center’s regular hours, Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m.- 5 p.m.

Montgomery teaches drawing in the Smith College Department of Art and is a recipient of the Blanch E. Coleman Award, Mellon Foundation Grant and a Sustainable Artist Foundation Grant. 

In “Fatal Flora: Poisonous Revenge Narratives,” she asks how in the hands of knowledgeable women, the natural world can be transformed from medicinal to murderous in a pinch, dash or splash of ingredients. Montgomery says that navigating the line between medicine and poison has always been tricky and, historically, women have transformed household botanicals into vital remedies and fatal toxics to shape the fate of their own lives. The exhibit blends history, memory, and the imagination to recall real and mythical women who change their lives by harnessing the powers of the natural world.

The Renaissance of the Earth is a publicly engaged humanities project that brings together a series of interdisciplinary research collaborations, undergraduate and graduate courses, hands-on workshops, curated exhibitions and arts programming to consider how legacies of the early modern past inform our environmental future. The residency invites local artists to explore the ways in which their work intersects with Renaissance thought and craft to produce creations that generate new perspectives on the relationship between the early modern world and our own.

More information about the Kinney Center can be found at umass.edu/renaissance.