What does it mean when an item within a museum talks back? How are the concepts of the trained gaze, the panopticon, and the sacred feminine connected? Artist and writer Shanta Lee Gander probes these questions and more in Dark Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Feminine.

This book accompanies the exhibition of Gander’s photo series of the same name, on view at the Fleming Museum of Art at the University of Vermont from February 8 to December 9, 2022. This innovative exhibition catalogue features essays by University of Vermont professors Dr. Vicki L. Brennan (Department of Religion) and Dr. Emily Bernard (Department of English), alongside interviews with Gander’s models for the Dark Goddess series, and original written work inspired by items in the Fleming Museum of Art’s collection. Conceived in tandem, the publication and exhibition weave together themes of the human gaze, an artist’s self-inquiry, history, ethnography, and an exploration of the duality of sacred and profane.