Field trip to The Museum of The White Mountains

Journalism in the Digital Age 

11/7/23

The Journalism in the Digital Age class took a field trip to the Museum of the White Mountains, on Wednesday, October 4, instead of going to our regular class meeting. We were exploring the new exhibit, Extending Ecology: Meaning Making with the White Mountains. This trip’s purpose was to make a story for the class and see the exhibit before it opened to the public. 

The mission of the Museum of the White Mountains is to obtain, maintain, and provide access to resources and activities that educate and engage its audience with the region’s artistic, historical, geographic, and cultural treasures. Its purpose is to enrich the life and scholarship of the Plymouth State University community, researchers, and the broader public. 

Rita Leduc, the artist of the exhibit, is an interdisciplinary artist who nurtures relationships with ecosystems to create multisensory pieces. She received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania, her Post-Bac Certificate from SAIC, and her MFA from Mason Gross (Rutgers). Leduc is involved with many different projects, such as being the creator and director of the interdisciplinary GROUNDWORK retreat and a member of The Place Collective. Her artwork has also been exhibited, published, workshopped, and presented extensively. 

Leduc explained her process of creating one of her pieces, depicting the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the wintertime. She mentioned how she returned to the area multiple times throughout each season to develop a relationship with the forest year-round. Winter stood out to her the most as nature seemed to be more still and silent, yet harsh. This piece stood out amongst the display as it captured the winter feeling of New Hampshire’s woods perfectly. 

Dr. Rich Blundell, who wrote the descriptive information mounted on the museum walls about the exhibit is an ecologist and cultural communicator, working in the fields of art, science, nature, and culture. He is the creator of “Oika,” or the intelligence of nature, and his goal is to make nature palpable for the public once again. Blundell has been awarded several grants and awards for his work, including the Brinkman Award, the Deep Time Value Award, and The National Science Foundation grant for Science Out There. 

According to Dr. Rich Blundell, we need to start realizing that nature extends beyond the physical world we see and includes what may be found if we look more deeply into space. Purely natural; let us begin to think that way. 

Director of the Museum of the White Mountains, Meghan Doherty, about how they arranged the exhibit. She described it as a conversation between her and the artists. Leduc and Blundell had input and were specific about the order of pieces and where they were. 

We highly encourage you to take a moment and experience this exhibit and see what these artists have to say about their work here!