A Lot More Inside: Esopus Magazine was a comprehensive exhibition focusing on the Esopus archive, which was acquired by the Colby College Libraries Special Collections in 2019. It was cocurated with Megan Carey, Barbara Alfond Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Colby College Museum of Art. Colby professors Gary Green and Gianluca Rizzo served as faculty advisors.

The show presented archival materials and original artworks associated with Esopus and included audio and video artifacts, photographs of studio visits and press runs, handwritten notes and diagrams, email exchanges, issue mockups, printers’ proofs, and artists’ correspondence. These were contextualized by select loans as well as commissioned artworks. 

A Lot More Inside: Esopus Magazine encouraged an engagement with its audience similar to that of the magazine with its readers. The exhibition made available all issues of the magazine and other Esopus publications for perusal; visitors could fill out “Esopus Picks” bookmarks to indicate their favorite contributions; complete a crossword puzzle designed for the magazine by cruciverbalist David Quarfoot; and play Metagame, a card game devised by Local No. 12 for Esopus 17. There was also a range of materials related to the magazine’s exhibition venue, Esopus Space (2009–12); and a hammock—commissioned from Esopus contributor Paolo Arao and Gregory Beson—turned the Davis Gallery alcove into a relaxing space that evoked the publication’s namesake, the Esopus Creek in New York’s Catskill Mountains. The creek was depicted in a 60-minute animated projection commissioned from Esopus contributors Hinterland Studios. A number of related events, from magazine-making workshops to film screenings, took place on campus and in downtown Waterville, Maine, throughout the run of the exhibition.

A Lot More Inside: Esopus Magazine was accompanied by an exhibition catalog that also served as the final issue of the publication.