The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs presents two photography exhibitions that examine personal and cultural histories of the Lowcountry. Calling Me Home: A Visual Ode to the Low-Country by Marcus Middleton and Children of Indigo by Caroline Gutman will be exhibited at City Gallery December 13, 2024 through February 9, 2025.
Children of Indigo is a documentary project that explores the plant's painful history in South Carolina and spotlights women in the Lowcountry today who have revived indigo cultivation and dyeing, building a flourishing community of textile artists and homesteaders. Calling Me Home: A Visual Ode to the Low-Country is a tribute to Wadmalaw Island and its environs. City Gallery will hold an opening reception for both exhibitions on Friday, December 13 from 5-7pm. An artist’s talk with Marcus Middleton will be held Sunday, February 9 at 2pm. An artist’s talk with Caroline Gutman will be held January 25 at 2pm. All events are free and open to the public.
Calling Me Home: A Visual Ode to the Low-Country is photographer Marcus Middleton’s tribute to Wadmalaw Island, or what he likes to call a “living museum." “The American South is both turbulent and beautiful, and my hope is to share that dynamic and sometimes contradictory experience with the audience; to capture Wadmalaw as it is, unspoiled by progress,” says Middleton. “Crossing over Esau Jenkins Bridge is like going back in time. And I believe that nostalgia is medicinal. Whenever I return home, I feel recharged and refreshed. It’s the little things, right? I live in a big city, but low-country living is a part of my culture. This body of work is an attempt to express the gratitude I feel for where I grew up. I will forever be enamored with this place I call home.” Middleton’s visual tribute to his home includes more than 100 images.
In Children of Indigo, Caroline Gutman explores how the commodity and its dye fueled slavery in the American colonies. Her body of work shows the remaining historical sites in contrast with contemporary textile artists and farmers confronting indigo’s difficult past and reclaiming it.
Indigo in America is haunted by a painful past. Like cotton, indigo carries inseparable links to centuries of American chattel slavery. Today, women in the Lowcountry have revived indigo cultivation and dyeing, building diverse communities of textile artists and farmers. “Indigo is the voice of our ancestors,” textile artist Arianne King Comer has said. National presentation of the Children of Indigo project, exhibition, artist tour, and panel discussion has been supported by the Pulitzer Center.
About Marcus Middleton
A Brooklyn-based photographer, but born in the South, Marcus Middleton has a passion for photo journalism, portraiture, editorial, and performance. His ultimate goal is to tell stories through images that convey a deep sense of intimacy along with the aliveness of the present moment. The audience should feel as if the whole thing exists just for them, and his hope is that they feel intrigued and invited into the subject(s) of the work.”
About Caroline Gutman
Caroline Gutman is an American photographer based in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. Her work focuses on political movements, environmental and economic inequality, and the creative economy, connecting the past to the present. Caroline’s photography appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, ProPublica, Mother Jones, and NPR, and she has worked with brands including PepsiCo, Liquid I.V., Adobe, Peloton, Apple, and British Airways. Previously, Caroline was a Fulbright Fellow in China where she documented indigenous women artisans and their indigo textile traditions.
City Gallery’s presentation of Calling Me Home and Children of Indigo is part of the MOJA Arts Festival’s NEA Big Read of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and this year’s NEA Big Read theme of “Where We Live.” The NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
About City Gallery
City Gallery, located at Joe Riley Waterfront Park, is owned by the City of Charleston and operated by the City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs, presenting an annual program of exhibitions and events featuring the finest contemporary art from local, regional, national and international artists, with a focus on the Lowcountry.
City Gallery is located at 34 Prioleau St. in downtown Charleston, and gallery hours of operation are noon until 5pm, Wednesday through Sunday. City Gallery remains open during the adjacent construction on Prioleau Street. The entrance to the gallery can be accessed via stairs from Waterfront Park, or by walking down the drive on the side of the building. Elevator access can be found inside the construction fences, under the staircase on the south side of the Gallery. For more information and holiday closures, visit www.charleston-sc.gov/
