The Charleston residency

Individualism is the God of today: we operate as autonomous individuals exhibiting a narcissism that focuses on our own desires and personal needs. Comfort and pride are within the trinity: barriers are built to maintain high levels of comfort that disable others from glimpsing our fears, baggage and dirt.

I want to challenge this philosophy by studying a unique community found in Charleston, South Carolina. Within this community each family unit operates alongside one another: a connected body. They live transparently, sharing their deepest concerns and suffering, letting the dirt of their lives be seen clearly. I have previously spent three weeks among them and was refreshed by their humility and servant nature. On the 8th of September I will embark on a three month residency living among this community, immersing myself in their way of living. I will collect stories from each family, narrating their understanding and experience of ‘community’.

On returning to my ‘island’ I hope to visually transform these written narratives into art works. I plan to create a woodcut for each family; like a family mural. The actual woodcuts will be transformed into humble chairs set in the round as if story telling is about to commence: these are the family units sharing life together. The prints themselves are their transparent stories being aired, hung behind each chair.

I invite you to share in the journey that I take over this residency. Throw down any preconceptions or associations that you hold of the word ‘community’ and let us see what we discover. As J. R. R. Tolkien states ‘We need to clean our windows, so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity’ (Tolkien on Fairy-stories, 2014: 67).