McLaurin Exhibition in North Carolina

The North Wind and the Sun, a project by artist Cathy McLaurin (participant in Alfredo Jaar’s Public Interventions), is on view through August 15, 2014 at Power Plant Gallery, a laboratory for the arts and a joint initiative of the Center for Documentary Studies and the MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts Program at Duke University.

In The North Wind and the Sun, North Carolina native McLaurin presents an on-going investigation of her rural hometown of Siler City through video, photographs and mixed media installation. In this exhibition, McLaurin explores the closing of the Townsend poultry processing plant and nearly concurrent unveiling of the new town slogan, “Delightfully Unexpected.” In the rebranding, Siler City, whose population is more than 50 percent Latino, and almost 20 percent African American, is compared to the fictional town of Mayberry (population 98 percent Caucasian) from “The Andy Griffith Show” television series, set in the late 1960s. Aunt Bee, a character in the show, is Siler City’s mascot.

McLaurin’s work examines this significant economic and demographic transition in Siler City while also questioning the meaning of home. As McLaurin writes: “Mining my personal history and that of my chicken-farming family is a method of engaging with and reacting to an industry in order to peel back its veneer, revealing networks, power, desire, and histories that combine with historical and contemporary issues of race, immigration, and agribusiness.”

On August 15, the last day of the exhibition, there was an Artist’s Reception from 5-8 p.m.