UCSC Department of Anthropology
Emerging Worlds
- Mark Anderson
- Chelsea Blackmore
- Donald Brenneis
- Melissa Caldwell
- Nancy Chen
- Shelly Errington
- Mayanthi Fernando
- Diane Gifford-Gonzalez
- Judith Habicht Mauche
- Susan Harding
- Andrew Mathews
- J. Cameron Monroe
- Megan Moodie
- Annapurna Pandey
- Triloki Pandey
- Renya Ramirez
- Lisa Rofel
- Danilyn Rutherford
- Anna Tsing
- Matthew Wolf-Meyer
Everyday objects lead us into worlds. In this exhibition, Santa Cruz anthropologists have picked ordinary and extraordinary objects encountered and salvaged during our research to follow them into worlds coming into being.
Anthropology is best known for the study of disappearing worlds. Our exhibition instead highlights the study of emerging worlds.
Inanimate things are lively interlocutors. Their uses require varied forms of common sense. We have gathered objects that lead us beyond what we take for granted to explore surprising worldmaking histories.
Worlds are real and imagined, big and small, symbolic and material. Everywhere, they are filled with things. Things help us know what it is to live in a world. When new situations emerge, things bring us into them.
Take another look at the things that accompany you. Reach out to touch them; maybe you can smell or taste them. Might they draw you into emerging worlds?
navigating the wild
How do we find our way around strange worlds? We must navigate in both senses of the term: to plan a course, to make one's way through entangled circumstances.
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containing spirits
Our things contain spirits, taming them and putting them to use. But they also draw us to unruly places. How do worlds emerge at the confluence of containment and chaos?
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the home & the world
What we call home is a system of mobilities as well as a place to settle. The things of home are traveling things, which draw us into emerging worlds.
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truth in power
Institutions crowd around powerful things, extending power—and regimes of truth.
Things become powerful in the making of truth.
signs & wonders
Things can amaze. They bring us into other worlds
by allowing us to appreciate their beauty, their strangeness, their antiquity, and their power. This
is a gift that itself has created new worlds: the
worlds of exhibitions.
Everyday objects lead us into worlds. In this exhibition, Santa Cruz anthropologists have picked ordinary and extraordinary objects encountered and salvaged during our research to follow them into worlds coming into being.
Anthropology is best known for the study of disappearing worlds. Our exhibition instead highlights the study of emerging worlds.
Inanimate things are lively interlocutors. Their uses require varied forms of common sense. We have gathered objects that lead us beyond what we take for granted to explore surprising worldmaking histories.
Worlds are real and imagined, big and small, symbolic and material. Everywhere, they are filled with things. Things help us know what it is to live in a world. When new situations emerge, things bring us into them.
Take another look at the things that accompany you. Reach out to touch them; maybe you can smell or taste them. Might they draw you into emerging worlds?
This website is based on an exhibition first mounted at the Porter Faculty Gallery at UC Santa Cruz from April 3 to May 5, 2012, then at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History from August 11 to November 25, 2012.
The exhibition was a collaborative effort involving faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates in anthropology and the arts.
The scholars and students who make up our department include biological anthropologists, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists who study everything from human evolution to transnational capitalism. We have come to share a lively conversation on the theme of emerging worlds.
Emerging Worlds Exhibition Team: Leia Delabahan, Shelly Errington, Elaine Gan, Amanda Hopkins, Grace Kistler-Fair, Danilyn Rutherford, Anna Tsing.
Media team: Mayanthi Fernando, Samuel Maurer, Shannon Morgan, David Soloway.
Special thanks to Nathalia Brichet, Zachary Caple, Jennifer A. González, Shelby Graham, Peter Harris, Frida Hastrup, Shayna Kent, Kyle McKinley, Katy Overstreet, Micha Rahder, Heather Swanson, Sesnon Gallery, Digital Arts and New Media Program, Department of Art, and the UCSC Alumni Association.
The Emerging Worlds exhibition was inspired by Copenhagen University's Waterworlds exhibition curated by Nathalia Brichet and Frida Hastrup. It was made possible by support from the UCSC Division of Social Sciences and generous donors to the Department of Anthropology.
