Artist Talk: "Neon Moss," Marianna Dixon Williams

Join Marianna Dixon Williams as they discuss their latest exhibition Neon Moss.

This video installation examines the convergence of personal and environmental transformation through the dual lens of queer identity and the impacts of Hurricane Helene in the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA). The layered footage of the artist’s hometown from before, during, and after the hurricane serves as an analogy for William’s own coming-out and evolving relationship to home. Sculptures made from reclaimed storm debris create a meditation on disruption, exploring how climate change has rendered the global intimate and immediate, and what it means to call a place home in an era when environmental crisis has become inescapably personal.

Marianna Dixon Williams (b. Augusta, GA, 1990) builds handmade electronic objects and develops installations that question themes of identity, environmental change, and the ability of this world to be simulated, emulated, and measured digitally. Their work presents broader conversations regarding world-building, evolving and eroding social systems, and the societal conditions that have impacted our visions for the future as they explore our interconnected relationships with the land, digital life and each other. Williams has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe and has completed projects in sites ranging from the Arctic Circle to South Africa’s Western Cape. Notable exhibitions include The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, The Oliewenhuis Art Museum at South Africa’s National Museum in Bloemfontein, the James A. Michener Museum, the Noyes Museum Galleries, and the European Cultural Center’s Palazzo Bembo in tandem with the 59th Venice Art Biennale. Williams has acted as a Design Fellow at Penn Praxis, a consultant for Georgia’s Covid-19 Taskforce, an organizer for community-driven arts spaces, and has produced commissioned installations for ShopCore Properties, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and Berkshire Hathaway Real Estate. Williams is a recipient of a Community Foundation grant and their work has been featured in The Washington Post, the New York Times, and Frieze Magazine. Their writing will be presented as a chapter in the forthcoming book, Oceans, Seas and Shorelines: Natural, Cultural and Environmental Histories, edited by Amin Heidari, Viv Westbrook & Mark Nicholls, published by Routledge.

This event is free and open to the public.