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Faculty of Fine Arts

Department of Art History

Open the Body: What Lies Beneath and Who Decides

Featuring works created for the Winter 2026 course ARTH 349 Studies in the History of Print: Art and Science in Print (16th to 18th Centuries) taught by Kristina Parzen.

Curation: Amithy Faith Escorpizo

Artists: Ethan Carter, Mia Cataquiz, Maeve Cordner, Blare Coughlin, Zoé Gougeon, Beatrix Harland, Jasmina Mansell, Jennifer Léveillé McFarlane, Nina Merritt, Gaëlle Packwood, Micha Paradis, Geneviève Perreault, Victorian Thibault-Malo

Didactic Panels: Kristina Parzen

Vitrine Coordination: Amanda Zhang

This exhibition explores what it means to open something in order to understand it. Across anatomy, warfare, natural history, and systems of collecting, the works reveal how bodies and worlds have long been studied, organized, and controlled through acts of observation. To open the body is not simply a gesture of discovery. It is also a process shaped by power, curiosity, fear, and desire. Arranged from body to military to ecology, the exhibition follows a gradual widening of perspective. Flesh becomes battlefield. Battlefield becomes landscape. Systems used to classify the human body begin to echo in diagrams of war, cabinets of curiosity, and representations of the natural world. Beneath these images are deeper questions about who has historically been allowed to define knowledge and whose lives have been overlooked, erased, or transformed into objects of study. At the same time, these works reclaim space for bodies, identities, and relationships that resist fixed definitions.

– Amithy Faith Escorpizo, Curator

 

Appendix of Works

Contemporary

  • Carter, Ethan. Untitled, 2026, digital prints. © Ethan Carter, 2026.
  • Cataquiz, Mia. Breastplate for Joan of Arc, 2026, ink on paper. © Mia Cataquiz, 2026.
  • Cordner, Maeve. Untitled, 2026, watercolour and ink on paper. © Maeve Cordner, 2026.
  • Coughlin, Blare. Wound Man, 2026, etching, aquatint. © Blare Coughlin, 2026.
  • Gougeon, Zoé. Musketeer Taking Aim, 2026, relief print. © Zoé Gougeon, 2026.
  • Harland, Beatrix. Winter Cherry (after Mary Delany); Everlasting Pea (after Mary Delany), 2026, sculpture of paper, wire, and paint. © Beatrix Harland, 2026.
  • Mansell, Jasmina. Female Nude Model, 2026, fugitive sheet, copperplate etching. © Jasmina Mansell, 2026.
  • McFarlane, Jennifer Léveillé. They take, take, and take more; Stop Stealing, 2024, etching on copperplate. © Jennifer Léveillé McFarlane, 2024.
  • Merritt, Nina. Illustration of Woman Sculpture’s Skeletal System; Illustration of Woman Sculpture’s Muscular System; Illustration of Woman Sculpture’s Digestive System; Illustration of Woman Sculpture’s Cardiovascular System, 2026, illustrations, pencil on paper. © Nina Merrit, 2026.
  • Packwood, Gaëlle. Le caribou des forêts boréales, 2026, watercolour and ink. © Gaëlle Packwood, 2026.
  • Paradis, Micha. Untitled, 2026, fugitive sheet. © Micha Paradis, 2026.
  • Perreault, Geneviève. Untitled, 2026, fugitive sheet. © Geneviève Perreault, 2026.
  • Thibault-Malo, Victorian. Untitled, 2026, fugitive sheet, linocut. © Victorian Thibault-Malo, 2026.
  • Globes made from Gores, 2026, digital prints on foam spheres. © Anonymous, 2026.

Historical

  • Anonymous. Tabula Foeminæ Membra Demonstrans, 1573, digital print (copy), fugitive sheet, hand-coloured woodcut (original). Public Domain: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/gaqf2ffu.
  • De Gheyn, Jacob II. The Soldier Carrying His Pike at the Slope, c. Late 16th–Early 17th century, digital print (copy), pen and brown ink, gray wash (original). Public Domain: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/335534.
  • Delany, Mary. Physalis, Winter Cherry, 1772-1782; Lathyrus Latifolius, Everlasting Pea, 1781, digital print (copy), collage of coloured papers, with bodycolour and watercolour, and with plant fibre samples, on black ink background (original). Public Domain: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1897-0505-672; https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1897-0505-501.
  • Di Giorgio Martini, Francesco. Trattato di architettura, c. 1487-1489, digital print (copy), illustration on parchment (original). Public Domain: https://www.facsimilefinder.com/facsimiles/treatise-architecture-francesco-giorgiomartini- facsimile.
  • Hopfer, Daniel. Design for the Channels of Fluted Armor, c. 1515, digital print (copy), etching (original). Public Domain: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/373143.
  • Jacob, Cyriacus. Frontispiece, in De Alchimia opuscula complura veterum philosophorum, 1550, digital print (copy), hand-coloured woodcut (original). Public Domain: https://www.abebooks.com/alchimia-opuscula-complura-veterum-philosophorumquorum/ 31093722334/bd.
  • János, Bálint. Afrika. Jellemzöbb Gerinees Állatai, 1928, digital print (copy), chromolithograph (original). Public Domain: https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/afrika-terezia- 1928.
  • Merian, Maria Sibylla. Caterpillars, Butterflies and Flower, in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, 1705, digital print (copy), hand-coloured etching and engraving (original). Public Domain: https://archive.org/details/Metamorphosisin00Meri/page/n41/mode/1up.
  • Rossi, Giuseppe after Jodocus Hondius. Terrestrial Globe Gores, 1615, digital print (copy), engraving (original). Public Domain: https://raremaps.com/gallery/detail/89195.
  • Vesalius, Andreas. Vigesima Quinta Quinti Libri Figura, in De humani corporis fabrica, 1543, digital print (copy), woodcut (original). Public Domain: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/358129.
  • Von Gersdorff, Hans. Wound Man Image, Fol. 64v, in Feldtbuch der Wundartzney, newlich getruckt und gebessert, 1530, digital print (copy), woodcut (original). Public Domain: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dgvg53v8.
  • Wingendorpi, G. Curiosity Cabinet of Ole Worm, 1655, digital print (copy), engraving (original). Public Domain: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1872-0511-1004.

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  • DeVries, Kelly. “Sites of Military Science and Technology.” In The Cambridge History of Science Vol. 3: Early Modern Science. Edited by Katherine Park and Lorraine Daston, 306-319. Cambridge University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521572446.015.
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