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1 month ago | 
chapter16.org | Cat Acree |Emily Choate |Ed Tarkington |Maria Browning
In On Freedom, Yale historian Timothy Snyder describes going to Ukraine after the 2022 Russian invasion. Sitting in the back of a friend’s car, looking over the coast of the Black Sea from Ukraine’s Kherson region, he describes filling the trunk of the car with watermelons gifted by farmers who de-mined their own fields with improvised equipment. Snyder and his friend would later give the watermelons away in Kyiv.
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2 months ago | 
chapter16.org | Cat Acree |Ed Tarkington |Chris Scott |Maria Browning
In the firm hands of Catherine Coleman Flowers, environmental, social, and racial justice aren’t separate strands of work that must be done, but rather parts of a whole that stretches back generations. Her essay collection, Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope, reveals an activist who knows what it takes to get things done.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
If you’ve ever had a child stare you down, you know the unnerving feeling that somewhere in their mind, somehow, they know more than they should. Now imagine you’re in a room surrounded by them, and try not to feel the need to explain yourself. Raíces en Arcilla (Roots in Clay) Through Dec. 28 at Elephant Gallery, 1411 Buchanan St.Cesar Pita’s ceramic sculptures feel like Mesoamerican artifacts.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
Dystopian visions of resistance and rage — this is often where imagining the future leads us, to worsening versions of our present fears. But artists working within Indigenous futurism can see things differently, like Choctaw artist Benjy Russell. With fishing line, flowers, mirrors and light, in photography, gardening and sculpture, he divines queer utopias. Floral arrangements appear like altars in the night, and a forest gleams with sparkles.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
A narrative arc is a fragile thing. It’s hard to do it right, no matter the medium, so I tend to be wary of narrative exhibitions. Christine Rogers’ spring show The Dream Pool was a selection of photographs presented with notably long wall text composed of personal narrative and historical documents. I spent so much time reading it that I was at Leu Art Gallery for well over an hour, but once I’d finished, I stood back with such awe at what she had done. As a photo show, it was stunning.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
The launch of Chantha Nguon’s Slow Noodles, a memoir about her life as a Cambodian refugee in the aftermath of Pol Pot’s 1970s genocide (co-written with Kim Green), was a movable literary feast, with international events as well as several key local affairs. The literary event of the season — and the year — was the book launch and group exhibition at Julia Martin Gallery. To honor Nguon and her book, Martin and 20 other women explored female resilience and perseverance.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
History accounts can deepen your love for your city, and @nashvillequeerhistory is a clear winner this year. Launched in 2021 by Sarah Calise, Nashville Queer History is a community project dedicated to archiving and elevating Southern queer history, and NQH’s Instagram account is actively making our city better by promoting historically focused events and sharing photographs and stories of queer folks in our history.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
Organized by North Carolina’s Mint Museum in collaboration with the Georgia Museum of Art, Southern/Modern was the first comprehensive survey of artworks created in the American South from 1913 to 1955. As successful as the early-2024 show was for its presentation of Southern art, it was particularly excellent in its presentation of Black and female artists.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
Journalist and former Nashville Scene reporter Steven Hale’s harrowing book is a culmination of his many years covering the death penalty in Tennessee. Death Row Welcomes You is a work of excellent reportage — for which Hale witnessed three executions while reporting for the Scene — but it is also committed to recognizing the humanity of the people on the state’s death row. From 1961 to 2017, Tennessee executed six people; from 2018 to 2020, it executed seven.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
nashvillescene.com | Cat Acree
In 2023, Sai Clayton’s solo show Hāfu got a Best of Nashville Writer’s Choice nod for Best Solo Debut, and this year it seemed like her name was everywhere, with multiple group exhibitions and two solo shows at Electric Shed and STATE Gallery at the Forge. Clayton’s vulnerable and formidable self-portraits explore her Japanese heritage and Southern upbringing through printings and paintings of her own face in bold color.
