brittany m. watkins

<Accept [(Self)+Elsewhere] was a site-specific installation designed and created for Lake City, South Carolina.  After traveling from Tallahassee, FL with only a few tools and materials, I was welcomed into the home of two local strangers, Amber Herring and Jessy Amaya, who hosted me for the duration of the project. During this time, I discovered a crucial part of the process was learning from and about the lives of the townspeople whom I encountered. If you look closely you will see and hear both real and metaphorical details from these stories weaved into the concept and visual presentation. Amber and Jessy took me on a non-typical tour of the city, helping to collect discarded household items and furniture off the streets of Lake City. Almost all of what you see, from the recognizable thing that has been painted over to the broken-down, dissected furnishing you might not quite recognize, once belonged to a person living in Lake City. This installation invites viewers to enter the artwork as if stepping into an abstract painting, offering a reality separate from ordinary life and traditional art-viewing. When inside, you are faced with differing perspectives of the American South and rural America. Tension acts as a tool in the work, with an array of objects that range in use, historical context, and class. These items teeter the line between playful and ominous as they simultaneously point to scarcity and excess. This imagined place, made real, as it is set in time situated amongst histories, memories, and perceptions of reality. The unresolved environment implores viewer investigation, consciousness, and inquiry to draw one’s own conclusions.