Named for its resemblance to the sharp teeth of a saw, Sawtooth Star is made of eight triangles that come together as a singular star. The pattern is an Indigenous symbol of honor and protection, as well as a marker for the Underground Railroad. Serving as armor, the star is a sacred promise; it represents looking up and moving forward. It invokes iridescence, sparkle, and metallic finishes, as well as the literal usage of stars. Sawtooth Star is celestial from the glimmer of the copper in Nari Ward’s Breathing Panels, to celebrating the immersive puzzle piece assemblage of Betye Saar to Radcliffe Bailey’s sculptures adorned with crushed green glass like Before Cisero (2016). It also speaks to travel and rapid creative or professional ascension: an art star in the making. Sparkling and sharp, the Sawtooth Star in the South and Caribbean is piercing light in all forms.

Storm Signal is an alert or sign indicating an approaching disturbance. A diamond, broken down into smaller half-square triangles, the composition captures the eye. It marks conflict and senses tension in the air, signifying a moment in flux, transition, or transformation. In contrast, Storm Signal can encourage unity, becoming a call to action or shelter. It is found in the Taíno folklore of the deity Guabancex or in Ronald Lockett’s assemblages exploring social tumult and unfulfilled promises. It is a beacon, like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton, North Carolina or Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) “Now” posters but also invokes Allison Janae Hamilton’s hazy Floridawater (2019) photographs. Whispered or encrypted, aural or visual, it materializes as a radio broadcast, rhythmic Morse code, and 3D-printed whistles mobilizing neighbors. Storm Signal is apocalyptic energy, but also a community ready to persist.

A pattern designed to recall the one-room school, <strong>Schoolhouse</strong> frames educational practices while stitching together new modes of artistic development. Addressing pedagogy and professionalism, the theme also includes expansive, experiential learning. Consider Black Mountain College, an experimental liberal arts program that brought interdisciplinary Bauhaus philosophy to the American South, or look to contemporary craft schools in Appalachia like Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Penland School of Craft, and John C. Campbell Folk School. Collaborative practice is invoked by <strong>Schoolhouse,</strong> like alternative teaching structures, skill trading, and DIY production, as in Tania Bruguera’s Cátedra Arte de Conducta (Behavior Art School) in Havana, Cuba. Self-taught art is relevant, as it expands who gets to be called an artist when bias and gatekeeping are prevalent in educational spaces. <strong>Schoolhouse</strong> is ultimately about artistic lineage and the appraisal of art and education because school is more than a building: it is a mindset, a movement.

The Trickster bends, and at times, breaks the truth. A crosser of boundaries, they are devoted to mischief. Eschewing stagnation, purity, or the binary, the trickster is always on the move. Never good or evil, they are paradoxically both: a thief, a liar, a politician, a scammer, an opportunist, a Confidence Man, a storyteller, an artist, a disruptor. In the American South, the Caribbean, and around the world, the Trickster may be known as Anansi, or Compère Lapin/B’Rabby/Br’er Rabbit, but the mentality also might extend to trompe l’oeil, appropriation, the artist’s joke, NFTs, or inflated art valuations. Whether stealing on behalf of the underserved, or peddling fraudulent cure-alls for personal gain, the Trickster survives. This creator and destroyer offers strategies in a time of upheaval. According to cultural critic Lewis Hyde, “Trickster the culture hero is always present: [their] seemingly asocial actions continue to keep our world lively and give it the flexibility to endure.”

Siren sings a song you hear with more than your ears. Its echo rises from within, appealing to a deep sense of longing. They may appear as a solitary seductress, weaponizing femininity as a lure, but it is in the company of sisters, a chorus, treachery awaits. Siren is not simply a temptress; they are terrifying beauty, dangerous desire, the sublime. Whether it’s La Diablesse provoking greedy lust, Mami Wata revealing spiritual truths, or The Charleston Mermaid exciting community change, the Siren’s call is a catalyst. Connected to water and ever-shifting tides, the Siren presides over bodies in flux:, queer folx, revolutionaries, refugees. In modern mythology, the siren may pull from influencer culture, physical adornment, work reflecting on storms or water, uncompromising sexuality, sound art, movement, movements, and femme fatale. Flashing lights. The chime of good fortune. The howl of a warning. The moan that something bad has already happened, will happen, is happening.

Ghost is a restless spirit that lingers after death. Or, it is an after image, one that remains when the act of creation is complete. Found across apparitions, oral histories, the Ghost encapsulates fear in the form of the Duppy, Zombi, Bacoo, Crying Woman, or the many heritage sites filled with slave history. It’s the grief carried on the shoulders of those individuals. It’s the haint blue that casts a protective glow from porch ceilings, a tradition of the Gullah Geechee that sought the color to ward off hauntings by mimicking the sky. It’s unfinished business, the monster house of generational purgatories, Toni Morrison’s Beloved where 124 was spiteful. It might also be the underpainting of a canvas or a recurrence from the annals of art history. Ghost recalls erased labor and histories, digital afterlives, “ghosting” and ghostwriting, ephemerality, shadow-banning, and censorship.

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?

explores the South’s metaphysical nature as a living archive, existing dually as a spatiotemporal metric: a means of fluid existence and a meteorological pursuit.

address the ways in which someone or something is visually indistinguishable from its context, specifically speaking to the permeability of the Southern landscape and its inhabitants.

interrogates the experiences that construct our lives, systems of relation, and landscapes across the South.

indexes the rich tradition of large-scale world building by artists in the South as a means of exploring alternative modes living among the landscape and repurposing the refuse of industry.

engages theories of post-humanism, the agency of other species, and new perspectives that invite a reappraisal of how we value nonhuman life.

explores the organic and inorganic forces that infect our landscapes and obscure our understanding of ecosystems.

seeks to address questions of spiritual and religious faith, artistic world-building, cultural enclaves, and historical narratives.

focused on speech, dialects, multilingualism, and oral traditions across the American South, a region distinguished by the amount of attention its residents receive for the ways in which they speak.

will investigate the ways physical and digital systems, cultural intersections, and interconnected webs of information provide alternative models for understanding the South’s present, history, and future.

explores fantasies of the Southern landscape as they relate to notions of leisure, recreation, and tourism.

examines water as a natural resource and cultural reference in the South, acknowledging the geological, historical, and political importance of waterways in the region.

investigates the cultural situation of artists and residents in the rural South, parsing the fluctuating boundaries between cities, exurbs, and the rural.