SOUTHERN EXIGENCY – ft. Nydia Blas, Jeremy Bolen, Benjamin Britton, Adam Forrester, Sonya Yong James, Casey May McGuire, Kelly Taylor Mitchell, Jiha Moon, Tim Short, and Cosmo Whyte

February 4 – March 5

Exhibition Reception: Friday, Feb. 4, 5-8pm

The Anderson and VCUarts are pleased to present Southern Exigency, an exhibition of ten Atlanta artists, organized and curated by the students of the Fall 2021–Spring 2022 Applied Curatorial Practices class. Representing four distinct School of the Arts studio and academic majors, the four student members of the class have worked tirelessly over the past seven months—to provide a glimpse into the power and promise of Atlanta, Georgia’s contemporary art scene.

This exhibition is organized and curated by the members of The Anderson’s Applied Curatorial Practices course: Sakina Ahmad, Cate Duckwall, Julia Park, and Kayleigh MacDonald.

From the curators:

Southern Exigency features ten Atlanta artists whose media-spanning works interrogate place, familial roots, memory, and physical land. Some works delve into the rich world of memories, often passing through portals and entering dreams or transformed realities. Others interrogate our relationship with the land and what we miss—or even look away from—that lies just under the surface. The power of storytelling coupled with radical vulnerability is evident throughout as each artist confronts themself and their environment, leading to the emergence of reborn narratives and deepened understandings. 

Connected, the works compose a varied and rigorous picture in response to and in conversation with the exigencies of the contemporary American South. How do we trace the places we have been while defining the urgent demands of the present and future? How can we navigate ourselves through the unknown, making the process a practice? What radical arrival(s) might we meet and what might we heal along the way? Through a critical examination of roots, memories, and histories, the artists in Southern Exigency posit how we might move into complexity, make the invisible visible, and open ourselves to the fullness of time and place.