The Human Season: Surviving, Thriving and the Art of the Seasons

Have you ever wondered how humans have responded to the changing of the seasons throughout history?

Or how our environments are intrinsically linked to our culture? Or even stopped to consider the consequences our actions have for our planet?

Born out of a curatorial collaboration between University of Leeds MA students from many cultures, The Human Season is an online exhibition inspired by works of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection in New York.

This exhibition explores the human experience of being subjected to seasonal changes and forced to adapt for our own survival. It showcases how communities from around the world have responded to these circumstances in unique ways through their cultural expression and methods of adaptation.

The Human Season will explore how modernization has altered our relationship with the seasons, and the resulting consequences.

We invite visitors to reflect on their own experiences of the seasons, and how, as the climate warms, this may change. We hope to inspire visitors to recognize their role in preserving the environment, and our collective responsibility to reduce the harm caused by human beings.

Visit the exhibition

The Human Season: Surviving, Thriving and the Art of the Seasons is part of a wider series of online exhibitions curated by Art Gallery and Museum Studies and Arts Management and Heritage MA students from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, as part of an Interpretations course module.

Visit the online exhibition.

Image

Detail from Autumn and Winter: two heads made from flora typical of those seasons, Anonymous, Italian, 16th to early 17th century. Inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Italian (ca. 1580–1620). The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2015:13. Image used under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.