Brushfire, from Gravida. Photo by Eliza Bell Schweizbach
By Emma Castleberry
An exhibition of work by finalists in the 22nd Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition is on display through May 3 at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University in Boone. This year’s competition received more than 500 submissions from 76 artists, with 47 photographs selected for exhibition.
“This exhibition is a celebration of the incredible thoughtfulness and talent emergent of the region,” says curator Shauna Caldwell. “Often, narratives of Appalachia are reduced to singular moments of destruction/devastation or stereotypes that scapegoat and minimize the phenomenal and diverse, often radical, impact of individuals and communities that come from these hills.”
Mom and the Magnolia Tree. Photo by Elizabeth Williams
Photographer Marcus Morris has work featured in the exhibition. His image, Elegance Is Refusal: Disappearing Acts, is inspired by Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved. “Some folks may not claim an identity because they feel as though they exist in the margins,” says Morris. “I have found power exists in the margins. Appalachia is diverse. It is Black and queer! Women and femmes are essential to its stories, and there is so much beauty in these hills.”
This year’s theme, “Making Kin: Belonging & Longing in Appalachia,” was chosen by jurors Frances Bukovsky and Susan Patrice of the Kinship Photography Collective. “Frances and I were eager to learn how other Appalachian photographers use their photography practice to make kin in their communities and how they are finding belonging, or not, in a changing Appalachia,” says Patrice. “I was touched by how personal, tender and intimate the image submissions were.”
The exhibition will feature a panel discussion on Friday, April 4, with Patrice and Bukovsky in conversation with Morris. A reception for the special visual arts issue of the Appalachian Journal, featuring artwork by the jurors and Morris, will follow.
“Photography allows for the contribution of a multitude of voices to a broader cultural conversation,” says Bukovsky. “When many different voices have access to making images, photography can reveal personal perspectives that allow for a more dimensional portrait of a place, or an experience.”
Turchin Center for the Visual Arts is located at 423 West King Street, Boone. Learn more at tcva.appstate.edu.
