Exhibitions

BAGGS MCKELVEY: INDIGO HOLLOW

University Art Gallery (The University of the South) / 735 University Ave., Sewanee, Tennessee August 27 - October 15th

Baggs McKelvey

The University Art Gallery presents Baggs McKelvey’s Indigo Hallow, a site-specific installation inspired by Shakerag Hollow on the campus of the University of the South.

Maps and aerial photographs of the area, and—in the words of the artist— “the contours of the trail, the rushing of the creek, the steep incline of the ridge barring the sun’s full entrance… the sounds of the birds,” were McKelvey’s starting points.

In all of her installations, McKelvey explores her relationship with the land and the environment. Indigo Hallow is not a portrait of Shakerag Hollow, but an intuitive and poetic response to place. Visitors are invited to share in McKelvey’s response, and also to consider the meanings and implications of materials, of process, and of the act of representation itself.

The immersive environment of the installation is rendered in a ubiquitous, mass-produced, and powerfully allusive material—denim from discarded used jeans, crowd-sourced from friends, family, and through social media. Cutting, knotting, and spinning the denim rope onto electrical wire spools was a communal project undertaken with friends and family, and the installation was made possible by the assistance of Cumberland Scholar high school student volunteers from St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School. The denim will be respooled at the close of the exhibition, to be used again.

The UAG will be transformed by Indigo Hallow until October 15.

McKelvey will present her work Wednesday, September 24, in Guerry Auditorium at 5 p.m.