Smith College Bulb Show

As part of my museum concentration at Smith College, I created two virtual exhibitions of exhibitions that existed first in the physical world. The first presented here is a virtual exhibition of the Smith College Bulb Show. Smith College’s The Botanic Garden’s Spring Bulb Show is a Smith College tradition. The bulb show has its origins in the early 1900s with various breaks in between, including the inability to obtain bulbs due to World War Two. Horticulture students in October pot the bulbs and place them into cold storage until January. They are then moved to the greenhouse and cared for and until they are curated in March. This project was started on the concept of how to give a longer life to exhibitions, and what is more ephemeral than plants?