Wilson Library exhibit shows changes in construction of knowledge

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story mischaracterized the collections to which items in the “From Wunderkammer to Museum: 1565-1865” exhibit belong. Items from Wilson Library’s Rare Books Collection and North Carolina Collection Gallery were included. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

The way students collect information has lost its flair in the last 300 years.

In the 16th and 17th century, Europeans collected objects for their rarity, artistic, scholarly or monetary value and put them on display in Wunderkammers, or cabinets of curiosities and wonder.

Using this technique, the travelling exhibit, “From Wunderkammer to Museum: 1565-1865,” opened Thursday in Wilson Library and contains historical objects ranging from an engraved portrait of Peter the Great to a volume highlighting medicinal properties of specimens.

The exhibit will remain open to the public until April 20.

Many of these objects come from the collection of Florence Fearrington, a 1958 UNC graduate, who is offering the public an opportunity to learn how knowledge was constructed before the mid-19th century and explore the history of collecting.

Curator of Rare Books Claudia Funke said Fearrington initially collected shells but began collecting books when she married her husband, the late James W. Needham, who collected books about birds.

When the bird books became expensive, they decided to collect books about shells together.

In addition to bringing a diverse range of people together to study history and art, the exhibit also offers old friends the opportunity to reunite.

Lou Taylor said she has been best friends with Fearrington since high school and said Fearrington’s grade school, high school and sorority friends all have attended the event.

“It’s interesting to know what she’s doing because it’s hard for her to describe it without seeing it,” she said.

Funke said she thinks the exhibit is extremely important for students to see.

“It’s basically about how we’ve come to know about things in the world, ” she said. “One way we came to know about things was to collect them, analyze them and study them.”

Funke noted the changes which have occurred in information gathering over time.

“Today if you want to know something, you don’t collect an object and scrutinize it, you type into your browser and you get up all this information,” she said. ” (The exhibit) is a medium for curiosity.”

Junior Josie Hollingsworth said her favorite piece was a South African love letter in the form of a necklace, in which certain colors of the beads symbolize different emotions and messages.

“I feel western culture is obsessed with writing things down and this is using a form of art as a way of telling the story,” she said.

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