Southern American photography comes to Richmond

Carolyn Slingluff, Contributing Writer 

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” as famously stated by Martin Luther King Jr., has inspired progress in the United States for decades since the Civil Rights Movement, according to Sarah Kennel, the Aaron Siskind curator of photography and director of the Raysor Center at the VMFA.

It also inspired “A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845,” which chronicles over 175 years of Southern history, Kennel said. The photography exhibition opened on Oct. 5 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and will run until Jan. 26, 2025.

The exhibition was co-curated by Kennel and her former colleague, Gregory Harris, the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family curator of photography at the High Museum of Art. 

“A Long Arc” was created at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia where Kennel was a curator before joining the VMFA in 2021. It includes an archive of more than 180 photographs depicting the American South, according to the VMFA website. 

The last time an exhibition of photography focused on the South was open was in 1996 at the High, Kennel said. That exhibition was called “Picturing the South,” according to the High Museum of Art website.

She is excited by the emergence of what she considers to be very interesting contemporary photography in the South, Kennel said. She also wants to uplift new career artists as she believes photography is a really powerful tool that shapes ideas of who we are.

“The kind of culture and politics and discussions that have been happening, especially in the American South, are really, in many ways, emblematic of a lot of the discussions we’re having right now in this country about what it means to be an American,” Kennel said.

The exhibition aims to address the larger historical perspective behind many of our existing and emerging American values, as well as display the complexity and diversity of the South, Kennel said. 

As you walk through, the exhibition is split up by era, beginning with 1845-1865 and ending with 2000-present. Kennel said she hopes visitors experience the photographs by feeling the myriad of emotions and the tensions between progress and regress that are illustrated in each section, rather than just seeing them.

“I think of it more as a microcosm of America. The exhibit does cover a lot of really tough moments in history, but it’s not a uniform, linear story,” Kennel said.

The VMFA held a talk in their Marble Room on Oct. 10, where Kennel did a deep-dive into the seven different sections of the exhibition and the photographs displayed in them. 

Amani Jefferson, a graduate student at George Mason University, attended Kennel’s talk. She is earning her master’s degree in art management and hopes to be a curator herself one day, she said.

She loved the talk as she found the exhibition to be very impactful and resonated with Kennel’s passion for working with living artists as well as archival work, Jefferson said.

“The pictures were kind of smaller at the beginning, and then they transition to these bigger photos, and I thought, that’s a way of kind of transitioning into, OK — we’re kind of bigger than what we were — but we still acknowledge the fact that we have these tribulations or these trials that we go through, and it’s not forgotten,” Jefferson said.

Celeste Fetta, the Joan P. Brock director of education at the VMFA, said the “longer arc” of the exhibition informs us on the past, but also the future of photography. A historical foundation can help newer Southern photographers tackle questions in their work such as what it means to be contemporary today and how history has influenced that, Fetta said.

The VMFA will hold multiple additional presentations and events related to the exhibition over the next couple of months. Details and tickets can be found on the VMFA’s website. Among them is the “VMFA Photography Challenge: ‘Destinations,’” according to Fetta. The challenge encourages community members to upload their photography with the #VMFAPhotoChallenge to Instagram or Facebook for the chance to be featured by the VMFA on social media.

Admission is free for VMFA members and children under six. Otherwise, tickets are $8 for youth and students with a valid student ID, $12 for adults and $10 for seniors ages 65-plus and groups of ten or more. A ticket grants admission to both “A Long Arc” and “American, born Hungary,” another photography exhibition at the VMFA. 

Correction: The article formerly did not have Gregory Harris’ title. Harris is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family curator of photography at the High Museum of Art. 

The article also previously did not mention the title of the last exhibition of photography focused on the South which opened in 1996 at the High Museum of Art. That exhibition was called “Picturing the South,” according to the High Museum of Art website.