The Global Views of Home exhibit in the Jones Carter Gallery, 105 Henry St., houses art reflecting on the idea of being born into a home and choosing one by displaying art from people born in the South and those who chose to live here.
The Mythically Speaking: Southern Past exhibit in Gallery 1 of the TRAX Visual Art Center, 122 Sauls St., uses artists’ work to explore the South’s past “as a way to understand our complicated present,” according to the Southern Voices/Global Visions website.
One of the pieces featured at TRAX is Wo-Mende. It depicts drawings of Black women who can trace their heritage back to the Mende people of Sierra Leone in West Africa. The Mende masks, printed on plexiglass, sit atop the drawings. The masks are worn during a ceremonial dance exclusively by women who go through an initiation process.
Masud Olufani, a South Arts fellowship winner, made the piece for the show. The inspiration for it came from his travels to Sierra Leone, where he and others traced their ancestry DNA to the Mende people.
He was given a new Mende name and discovered the Mende mask there. The art itself has the American and Mende name of the women featured along each face.
The piece, and it being in South Carolina, is to remind people Black Americans’ history and cultural memory goes further back than just what is seen in the United States.
“It’s reclaiming the narrative,” Olufani said.
Sounding Off: Southern Present in Gallery 2 of the TRAX Visual Art Center “explores the social, cultural and political realities that together have created the contemporary South.”
The Crossroads Gallery, 124 W. Main St., houses Digging Deeper: Personal Identity, where artists’ works explore new ways to define one’s own identity beyond race, gender, age and ethnicity.
Burns didn’t have a specific route of how best to appreciate the exhibits, but said one should either start or end at The ROB.
“There’s a lot to walk around and interact with,” Burns said.
