EXHIBITION STATEMENT
Lavender Mountain draws on the rich queer visual history and legacy of Appalachia, pulling focus to contemporary artists and issues currently facing Appalachia and her people. Lavender Mountain brings together eleven artists from across the Appalachian Region, each work a sensitive testimonial of identity informed by land, ancestors and family, and individual and collective histories.
In recent scholarship and with the increase in visibility of Queer Appalachia(ns) there is a lot of attention being paid to Appalachia as an inherently queer place whose lineage is deeply rooted in activism, liberation, the environment, and community building. In the seminal publication Y’all Means All, edited by Z. Zane McNeill, there is a heavy emphasis placed on the importance of naming and self-identification. McNeill posits that one’s self-definition as queer and as Appalachian is in and of itself a revolutionary act; a reclamation, a resiliency. That through self-naming and engaging in history and memory, rural queers are building a world where the creation of identity and community is central in the effort to reframe the narrative of Appalachia as the vastly diverse and queer place that it is. There is a connective visual language amongst the works in the exhibition that are not only a love letter to place, but are also indicative of a unique perspective on it. A queered landscape, or a queered history, is not itself apart from a queered identity — each a catalyst for a deeper, more embodied way of being. It is about connection, it is about community.
The recent increase in stories from and by a new generation of Queer Appalachian artists, activists, and scholars is part of a larger movement in Appalachian Studies in which the stories and experiences of people on the margins are coming into focus. The BIPOC, disabled, and queer stories, among others, are being told and fashioned, unearthed from the archives, unhidden, relit — unfolding like misty sunlight over lavender ridges.
