Exhibitions
WOVEN WIND
Slocumb Galleries (ESTU) / 232 Sherrod Dr., Johnson City, TN September 22 - October 24th
Vesna Pavlović, Courtney Adair-Johnson, Marlos E’van, Mélisande Short-Colomb, Rod McGaha, Jan Hillegas, Woody Register
The ETSU Department of Art & Design and Slocumb Galleries proudly present Woven Wind an interdisciplinary exhibition with opening Reception and Artists’ Speak on September 22, Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the at the Slocumb Galleries with the Guest of Honor, Dr. Susan McCracken, ETSU Associate Provost for Community Engagement.
Woven Wind is a multi-layered artistic endeavor grounded in critical research on the Lovell-Quitman archive, located at the University of the South, Sewanee. Extensive plantation records, photographs, and objects found in the archive, document the lives of the officer William Storrow Lovell and wife Antonia, whose father was John A. Quitman (1799-1858), a large slaveowner and former governor of Mississippi. Scrutinizing the inventories of the enslaved people, produced in 1858 after John A. Quitman’s death, the team of artists worked with a genealogist to locate a family of descendants. Following this lead the team met the Toles family to record their oral histories and examine the painful history of enslavement and bondage using their voice. In the film, family members talk about tracing and searching for the ancestors, value of repair, legacy of racism, and how it affected their family.
In the Woven Wind project, Vesna Pavlović is the lead artist joined by Nashville-based artists Courtney Adair Johnson, Marlos E’van, musician Rod McGaha, community advocate Mélisande Short-Colomb, founding member of the GU272 Advocacy Team, historian Woody Register, Director of the Roberson Project for Slavery, Race and Reconciliation (Sewanee), and family researcher and genealogist, Jan Hillegas. Archival research, community engagements, photography, painting and sound, and ceramic workshops collectively re-imagine the archive and construct a platform for education, conversation, empathy, and repair. Woven Wind invites us to remember together and to work towards community and healing in the present.
The exhibition Woven Wind is funded by the Tennessee Arts Commission’ Arts Access and Arts Project Support grants, ETSU Student Academic Activities Committee (SAAC), and the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, in collaboration with Vanderbilt University and Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Slocumb Galleries are located at Ernest C. Ball Hall, 232 Sherrod Drive, ETSU campus with viewing hours on weekdays from 11am to 5 pm with extended hours during receptions and by appointments.
For more information, scheduled visit or handicapped accommodations, please email Karlota Contreras-Koterbay via contrera@etsu.edu.
