Crafting Civil (War) Conversations — McKissick Museum’s commemorative exhibition

As part of its commemoration of the end of the Civil War, McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina will launch a major juried art exhibition that symbolically re-enacts the war’s end as a scene of reconciliation — not between the North and the South—but between former slaves and former slave owners. Crafting Civil (War) Conversations will run from February 2 to May 31, 2015.

Artists working in craft-based media (clay, fiber, glass, metal and wood) are invited to submit entries for the exhibition. The Museum asks artists to imagine a scene of reconciliation, perhaps giving visual and sculptural form to what Martin Luther King conjured when he dreamt of a day when “the sons of former slaves and the sons of slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

What kind of table, chairs, and table wares might bring people together to share a meal and speak candidly about how the institution of slavery continues to shape Southern life? Would the table be set with china, ceramic stoneware or wooden plates? Would sterling flatware or oyster shells serve as eating utensils? Would a tablecloth grace the table’s surface? Are there serving pieces on the table suggestive of the food traditions Southerners forged and share?

In other words, what might the material culture of restorative justice look and feel like?

$25,000 in purchase prizes will be awarded to artists and/or artist collaboratives. To participate, artists must have been born in, raised in (a minimum of one year), or be currently living and working in one of the states that joined the Confederacy:  Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Submitted artworks must have been completed since April 2011, the start of sesquicentennial commemorations of the American Civil War.

The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2014.

Complete participation guidelines are available on McMissick Museum’s website.

Via: McKissick Museum