A pickle jar of milkweed fluff sits incongruously on a DVD player. Across the room, a leather rabbit's head is mounted on a plaque beside a skillfully drawn diagram of owl and bat skeletons and anatomy. Recipes and scribbled notes are tacked to the walls, some detailing the creation of a "Fork tree," others noting how much mead to purchase. Pencil maps, a box of pinecones, wine bottles, mitten molds and signs. Welcome to "Renovating Walden," a current exhibit at the Tisch Gallery.
The modern and the antique hang side by side without a sense of hierarchy. The objects seem random, the common thread hard to grasp. A rising sun of old saws rises above modern planes, levels and bright orange tape measures. Everything intermingles with impunity — all is used, all is important.
The gallery is in constant flux — contributing artists, prompted to submit pieces of art or objects inspired by or relating to Henry David Thoreau's 1854 book "Walden; or, Life in the Woods," continuously reconsider submissions and request to remove their objects and replace them with others. Even original plans change on a weekly basis.
Originally, there were to be two actual cabins contrasted in the second room of the gallery, but one remains unfinished, a mere skeleton, while the other is a large pile of stacked lumber. This doesn't seem to bother the curators or contributors. So what if at first the curators were going to use the same amount of lumber used in Thoreau's cabin in Concord, Mass., to create something new and unique but then changed their plan? Now, the unused lumber juxtaposed with the skeletal cabin gives visitors a sense of the raw materials that go into the construction.
It is precisely this unregimented, go−with−the−flow attitude that so strongly embodies Thoreau's own approach. A man who left civilization and its constructs of time and order to live by the rhythm of nature and the seasons, Thoreau in his book "Walden" illustrates this notion of the unstructured — a willingness to submit to the shifting of events as it happens.
The juxtaposition of old and new created by the "Renovating Walden" exhibit forces a question: What can we, as college students in the fast−paced, modern world of 2010, take away from Thoreau's "Walden"? Is it still applicable? Relevant? Pertinent? What would Thoreau think of our world? If he bemoaned the advent of the post office as an avenue for unnecessary sharing of thoughts, what would he think of blogs, e−mail and texting? Would he regard the America of today as the graveyard of simplicity and the natural world? And if so, is there still anything we can do to redeem it?
Much of "Walden" can be, almost eerily, applied to modern life. Consumerism, commercialism and capitalism run amok. Thoreau in 1854 attacks agricultural production as a disconnect from the natural world, from farming that was once a "sacred act." He would be even more horrified by our world of supermarkets and frozen meats and how we don't see or even think about where our food comes from.
Yet there has in recent years been the beginnings of a shift to a more Thoreau−ian mindset about food. What would Thoreau think of Michael Pollan or Barbara Kingsolver, of the move to organic, local farming and farmers' markets? Yes, most of us are still removed from the process of acquiring food, but some, slowly, are returning to the idea of the sacred bean fields. Thoreau prophesized and lamented our disconnect from growing things, but he also perhaps prophesized a reconnection with the "holy practice" of farming.
The "Renovating Walden" exhibit brings the continuing relevance of Walden to the fore. It achieves this primarily through its "lyceum" feature, in which professors lecture in the gallery and teach classes on a variety of subjects. Nothing is inapplicable — from English to chemistry, economics, architecture, environmental science and history, Walden still serves as inspiration or a springboard for modern discourse.
The lyceum is as freeform as the rest of the exhibit: Round tables at different levels are scattered around the room with piles of pillows and low−backed chairs. Visitors and students are invited to move the furniture at will to make themselves comfortable as they listen, engage and reflect.
"Walden" asks us to slow down. Perhaps we are not in a situation in which we can "drop out" of society — or even school — in the way that Thoreau did, but we can take it as a prompt to take a moment for simplicity and removal. We can pause to turn off our phones, iPods and computers and take a break from the world of speed and instantaneous connection and communication.
Honestly, at times when it feels like the only priorities in our lives are academic−related, when our world revolves around the next paper, the next grade and the next grad school application, it's somehow a relief to take a moment and realize, as earthy−crunchy as it sounds, that the seasons still change. The leaves still fall. The natural world continues despite our stress or worry or lack of Internet connection. Maybe we can build cabins in Concord.
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Denali Hussin is a senior majoring in English.
