What do you know about the South? Or better yet, what have you been taught about the South? I think that is a better place to start. For many people who have never been or are not familiar they may have an image of farmland and dirt roads or even the southern hospitality and soul food or poor folks who are uneducated and have never left their state. But for us who were born and raised here, we tell a very different story. I thought while being in 2023 we would be past these stereotypical narratives that have come from the past of the South but the more I travel and spoke to different people the more I realized how little is known by non-southern people about the culture of the South and especially the artists that come from it.
What is not lost on me though is the amazing work of so many Southern scholars, public figures, activists, and artists who have been shedding a light on the South and its culture, but does that light matter if no one is looking? The idea of being seen has played a huge role in the creation of this project. How are we seen? How do we see? What do people choose to look at? And who is worth being seen?
Thinking about these questions led me on a journey of trying to see as much Southern art as I could. When you grow up with something and you’ve never been without it, it can be hard to see it from the outside and be aware of just how deeply rooted you are in a community and culture.
During this time when I took a step away to just observe, I realized how important right now is for southern artists. The more I saw, the more it became glaringly apparent to me that we are indeed in the middle of a new creative movement, a Black Renaissance. As Ibram X. Kendi writes, “We are living in a time when the white gaze remains ever present in American life, but is hardly dominant among today’s assemblage of courageous Black creators. We are living in the time of a new renaissance—what we are calling the Black Renaissance—the third great cultural revival of Black Americans, after the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, after the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Black creators today were nurtured by these past cultural revivals—and all those brilliant creators who sustained Black Arts during the 1980s and 1990s. But if the Harlem Renaissance stirred Black people to see themselves, if the Black Arts Movement stirred Black people to love themselves, then the Black Renaissance is stirring Black people to be themselves. Totally. Unapologetically. Freely” (Kendi 2021).
This idea proposed by Kendi is what has led me to pursue this project with such urgency. It is here and now that history is in the making. The Southern Black artists of today are showing us that they are proud of their identity and they want to show it to the rest of the world. Through the interviews that you will find in the film and this accompanying book, you will get a rare look into why these artists choose to be so vulnerable and let people share an intimate look into their world. Coming back to the idea of being seen, these artists are giving people a direct view of Black life through a Black lens. This centering of the Black perspective is what makes their art so profound. They are simply unconcerned of the narratives of mass media which have always centered the global minorities gaze. By viewing Southern Black life through a Black lens we are being authentically us and creating from a place of safety and vulnerability.
Creating in the South, there is a certain amount of the artist’s hand and home that can be seen in everything we do. Craft art and DIY processes have been the root of many Southern Black artists’ work across time. Coming from a region that is not considered, by the larger art community, to be a mecca of creation, we simply do not have access to the same resources, that in New York, London, or Paris would come a dime-a-dozen. We understand that to some extent we have to make our opportunities and institutions ourselves. This mindset has caused us to have a unique perspective when it comes to our art-making processes. We use unconventional methods, DIY construction, and found objects and have a passion that is fueled by wanting to have a voice in the chaotic territory that is the broader art world. Thanks to growing up with the internet, we see what is possible and we know it can be done but without the resources readily accessible, we must become innovators to push a path forward for ourselves.
This is where community becomes a vital pillar for us. Community is and has always been the foundation of southern Black Americans. Our families have been creating spaces that foster growth and take care of each other since before slavery. We have a sense of collective that has brought us through a tumultuous past to a hopeful and prosperous future. But this might just be wishful thinking on my end because the United States is a country that no matter the amount of progress we make, hates Black people and consistently and systematically punishes us. As much as our culture is massproduced for consumption around the world, one would think that our culture would be valued and protected, but instead, it is mocked and taken in vain only to be made into entertainment for non-black audiences.
From the conversations you will read in this book, you will find comradery and stories centering not only on our artwork but also on growth, vulnerability, healing, home, identity, family, and most importantly, community. Because we all carry the same responsibility of shining lights into the diverse world that is the Black American South.