In our next co-publishing feature with Oxford American, Thalia Butts pays tribute to the late Marquetta Johnson, a quilter based in Atlanta who compared her practice to jazz and inspired her students to stretch the boundaries of quilting as a medium.
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considers the spoken and heard vernacular in the American South and ways in which we communicate across the Region. Yes, it is accents and pronunciations, but it is also an auditory marker and a trace of place. Twang is hyperlocal lingo and addresses region-specific, city-specific, even house-specific vocabulary. It is a Southern export, a diasporic carrier. It is also reverb, echo, and slowness, which can be observed through the timbre of a musical instrument like a banjo, or André 3000’s New Blue Sun. The theme troubles cultural assumptions and provides intrigue for writing and art that addresses projected or mistaken identities. Twang signals “you are/aren’t from around here,” but also, “we are not in a hurry to get there.”
traverses desire in all its overwhelming iterations, from interpersonal romance to enthusiasm for a certain artist/artwork, and as well as other cringe-worthy scenarios in this contemporary age. It also encapsulates the physical act of “crushing” and aesthetics that reflect a reactive quality, or materials and forms that show the artist’s hand. Crush examines the visual intensity found in “maximalist art” i.e. large-scale installations, layered and interdisciplinary compositions, enthusiastic gestures, and piling on of all kinds. It is the accumulative nature of some Southern homes as well as artists that collect and employ found objects, like Thornton Dial. Think also about reverence, retrospectives, what it means to pay homage, pen odes, and perform acts of service. Be too much. Get too close.
is about introductions, jokes, and local activism. It is going door to door and meeting face to face. Whether addressing political canvassing in this election year or trick-or-treating, the theme questions: what does it mean to be neighborly in the South? What do we owe one another? Employing matter-of-fact revelations or grappling with complex truths, Knock Knock speaks to proximity and presence. It is relational, even familial, in application. It also includes actual entrances, artistic thresholds, as well as metaphorical doors opening—and sometimes—slamming shut. Knock Knock is art that addresses architecture, “hitting the pavement,” and cul-de-sacs. It is an opportunity offered and (maybe) revoked. Who's there?
I think we all manufacture intimacy all the time. It’s like going on a date—we’re going to a restaurant, we are wearing special outfits, we’re rising to the occasion to make it work.
”E.C. Flamming interviews Atlanta-based artist Andrew Lyman as part of Burnaway's theme series CRUSH, where they discuss intimacy, his entry point into photography, and crushing on your friend group.
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Kicking off National Poetry Month, Z. Yasmin Waheed merges prose poetry and perfumery in Florida Water, a Mood Ring exploring Miami through olfactory memory.
Emily Llamazales interviews Atlanta-based artist Shawn Campbell on his solo exhibition Act III: The Act of Acting at Alabama Contemporary Art Center in Mobile, putting oneself into the shoes of the cowboy, and the sustaining life of this archetype through manufactured art objects.
Ming Joi Washington reviews Andrea Chung: Between Too Late and Too Early, highlighting Chung's practice as a "curriculum of care" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami.
For the March edition of Burnaway's co-publishing with Oxford American, Ian Carstens pays tribute to the now closed Ruckus Journal, an independent arts journal based out of Louisville, Kentucky.
