Seeing in the Dark

artwork by Jessi Jumanji

Don’t you wonder sometimes’Bout sound and vision?

Blue, blue, electric blueThat’s the color of my roomWhere I will liveBlue, blue

Pale blinds drawn all dayNothing to do, nothing to sayBlue, blue

I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and visionAnd I will sing, waiting for the gift of sound and visionDrifting into my solitude, over my head

Don’t you wonder sometimes’Bout sound and vision?

—David Bowie

Recently, i joked with Tom Rankin—guest editor of the Spring 2020 Documentary Moment Issue—that lately I don’t read anymore, I just look at art. When I first admitted this, sheepishly, I was embarrassed. But the past few weeks have confirmed the merits found in observing, examining, gazing. Especially when we collectively find ourselves turning inward and sheltering in spaces of our own making, art becomes a source of comfort. Looking at art creates room to think and to imagine how we might contribute to the fabric of history. Art invites us to approach it on our own terms.

Even as many of us are homebound, we can find creative ways to engage with art in all of its forms, and wonderfully, there is something for everyone. Galleries are setting up online viewing rooms, museums are opening digitized collections to the public, families are relying on art supplies to occupy a nation of children. We can find inspiration in a book, in nature, at the soft tip of a brush, or in the smears of our children’s finger paintings that seem to us masterpieces. Armed with art, we find a way to navigate uncertainty and dream new futures, based not on fear but on connection.

Like all of us, I find myself and my family caught in the ever-changing landscape of a global pandemic that threatens the lives and security of not just one family, one town, one city, one region, or even one country. The very fabric of the world as we know it is being rewoven, tested for strength, any small gaps rapidly patched or, devastatingly, ripped open even further. Depending on where you sit, the virus’s effects are akin to being pricked by a pin or hit by a boulder. Personally, I have been preoccupied with how to get through the day sequestered at home with two small children, a partner who, like me, has work to do, and a dog who wants to be walked. It can be comforting to know that we are all gathering information, scanning the landscape for signs, and remaking our lives to handle what might come next.

Our changed world provides a new momentum for this issue: creativity as a saving force, that energy from which innovative ideas are born, that spirit that makes it possible to thrive in our present circumstances and bring a new future into being. Art, southern or otherwise, is a pathway to connection within ourselves and with others. In this new reality, art is as essential for survival as it ever was.

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in my job as a curator, my days are mostly filled with looking at art. I am drawn to work that welcomes the curious and implies rather than dictates. This issue, our first ever dedicated to visual arts in the South, is an invitation to see what some of the diverse artistic voices connected to the region are up to. Great art prompts rather than directs conversation. That doesn’t mean that the work doesn’t have something to say—indeed, sometimes it yells above the din to get our attention or whispers in the quiet to draw us in. Other times, it whispers when it’s loud so it’s almost impossible to hear, or yells when it’s quiet and turns everybody off. But that can be compelling, too, and requires us to work a little harder to make sense of it all. We might just be entering one of those times when some extra effort...