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There is the appearance of debris strewn across the surfaces of Bethany Collins’ The Odyssey: 1990/1851/1980/2002/2000. This is not the aftermath of the kinds of battles described in The Aeneid, which in her translation she renders as tender-skinned, deeply-scarred pages. Instead, it is evidence of Collins’ physical deconstruction of the text. For these works, Collins rewrites pages of canonical texts in graphite, only to rub out all but a single passage with pink pearl eraser and her own saliva. The eraser dust and worn paper cling to and give way from the surface, gathering at the bottom of the frames. The text that remains legible reveals disagreement, even contradiction, across centuries of translations of these enduring texts.  

Charred scraps of paper gather in the bound margin of a scorched songbook in Collins’ The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Hymnal. This hymnal presents 100 versions of a contrafactum—a song in which the melody remains constant while the lyrics are rewritten over time. Repurposed since the 19th century for causes as incongruous as abolition and the confederacy, the hymnal’s unifying melody has been singed here exactly where it was to be sung. The entangled remnants of the musical notation cling to and tear from one another as the pages are turned. Bound together in disagreement and fragility, the hymnal is emblematic for Collins of American democracy.  

These tempest-swept surfaces metaphorize and evince a human struggle to find our way home through language. Collins selects texts that describe experiences of estrangement and of yearning to regain connection. Sometimes these are words that have been deemed worthy of repeating, over and over again in the case of classical texts, or of rewriting, over and over again in the case of contrafacta hymns. Other times, other words, other struggles with the world, with war, and with coming home are collectively forgotten – ephemeral as newspaper windswept through the street. And yet, they too voice a struggle, a plaintive, poignant, personal plea: Do you know them? Can you help me find my people?  

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Bethany Collins (1984) is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptually driven work uses language as a prism through which to explore American history and the nuance of racial and national identities. 

Collins was the 2013-2014 Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the 2019 Public Humanities Practitioner-in-Residence at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. Collins was awarded the Joan Mitchell Fellowship in 2022. 

Checklist of the Exhibition

Come Home, Jackson, 2023​
Blind embossed on Stonehenge paper
9 3/4h x 6 3/4w in​
On loaned from Patron Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

The Aeneid: 2021 / 1697, 2022​
Unique screenprint on handmade paper
44" x 30" 
On loaned from Patron Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

The Aeneid: 1971 / 1697, 2022​
Unique screenprint on handmade paper
44" x 30"
On loaned from Patron Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Hymnal, 2023 Book​
6" x 9" x 1"
Edition of 10​
Collection of Bryn Mawr College, 2022.6.100
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The Odyssey: 1990 / 1851 / 1980 / 2002 / 2000, 2020​
Graphite and toner on Somerset paper​
Each: 44" x 30"​
Collection of Bryn Mawr College, 2022.6.19.1-5​

On-Campus Display

The Odyssey: 1990/1851/1980/2002/2000 (2020) is on longterm display in Carpenter Library (Floor A). 

Additional audio from the artist's residencies TK
 

Artist's Residency

Curator
Carrie Robbins, PhD, Curator/Academic Liaison of Art & Artifacts

Artist Residency Advisory Group
Lela Aisha Jones, Assistant Professor and Director of Dance
Matthew Feliz, Assitant Professor of History of Art and Acting Director of the Center for Visual Culture
Monique Scott, Associate Professor of History of Art and Director of Museum Studies

Graphic Design
Nathanael Roesch

Installation Team
Flannel & Hammer of Philadelphia

All exhibitions and events in Special Collections are supported by the Friends of the Bryn Mawr College Libraries.