We know it as the East Side — the residential neighborhood located roughly between Meeting and East Bay streets, and between Huger and Mary streets. But that label is a pejorative, according to Charleston historian Nic Butler, who lives there.

The term gained currency in the 1960s, once the area became predominantly populated by black residents, and reflected the view that the neighborhood had become an isolated ghetto, Butler wrote in an essay published Oct. 18 by the Charleston County Public Library.

“That discriminatory mentality quickly eroded its two centuries of identity as a mixed-race, working-class village,” he wrote.

Before the 1960s, the neighborhood was called Hampstead Village. And its 250-year history of booms and busts provides examples of municipal neglect and prejudice, as well as impressive local enterprise.

Over at Annex Dance Company, artistic director Kristin Alexander has her sights set pretty high. The company has regularly choreographed works for nontraditional performances spaces, such as a recent site-specific piece weaving in and out of artist’s Jennifer Wen Ma’s exhibition,“Cry Joy Park: Gardens of Dark and Light” at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

She’s up for conceiving a work that spans the entire length of the Arthur Ravenel Bridge. “I envision 40 dancers with moments of unison, partnerships, travel and stillness,” she said in an email. “Not only would this be a piece for those driving over the bridge to witness, but I love thinking about some of the audience on boats.”

Katrina Andry is a visual artist with an unexpected request.

Known for her colorful, life-sized woodblock prints and immersive multimedia wallpaper installations, the New Orleans native makes art that pulls you in by the pupils and doesn’t easily let go. So it came as a surprise when she told me calmly and without hesitation that she wants visitors to her exhibition at the Halsey to look at something else on the walls.

“If people go and only have five minutes to go to the show,” she says, “I hope they read the wall text. Yes, I hope they read.”

“Artificial American Culture Shock,” “The Unfit Mommy and Her Spawn Will Wreck Your Comfortable Suburban Existence,” and “Mammy Complex: Unfit Mommies Make for Fit Nannies” — the titles of Andry’s bright prints — are unequivocal. These are works meant to make you think, and think hard, about what’s going on inside the thick printed lines and saturated swaths of color.

When you peer behind the metaphorical curtain of the Charleston Gaillard Center, you may notice something even more than its state-of-the-art acoustics and luxe decor. Those with an eye on the local arts scene will also admire it as a feat of philanthropy.

…

Other Charleston arts organizations have also benefited from such generosity. In 2017, the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston received an anonymous $1 million gift from a member of its advisory council. There is also the rare and dear 1638 Guarneri violin, which was provided to Charleston Symphony by an anonymous symphony patron so that concertmaster Yuriy Bekker can perform with it.

Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, a 2018 publication by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, has been chosen as the winner of the 2019 Alice Award.

The Alice Award is granted by Furthermore grants in publishing, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, with a top prize of $25,000. Southbound was chosen as the winner out of over 120 submissions received in 2019.

The Southbound book was published in 2018 to accompany the Halsey’s exhibition of the same name, a collection of 56 photographers’ visions of the South over the first decades of the 21st century. Stories accompany the photos to provide the reader with a sense of place.

A 2018 book of photographs of the South by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston has won the 2019 Alice Award, a $25,000 prize given annually by Furthermore to a richly-illustrated book that “makes a valuable contribution to its field and demonstrates high standards of production.”

The book, Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, accompanied the Halsey Institute’s 2018 exhibition of the same name. The book was edited and included an introduction by the exhibition curators, Mark Sloan and Mark Long, and designed by Gil Shuler Graphic Design. The catalogue contains contributions by Nikky Finney, Eleanor Heartney, William Ferris, John T. Edge and Rick Bunch. The Southbound project comprises 56 photographers’ visions of the South over the first decades of the 21st century. The photographs are accompanied by stories that provide the reader with a sense of place.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston has won the 2019 Alice Award for its book “Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South,” published in conjunction with a sprawling and landmark exhibition that opened in October last year.

The volume was one of three finalists, and 120 total submissions, for the award and accompanying $25,000 prize from Furthermore Grants in Publishing, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Shortlisted titles win $5,000.

Artist Fahamu Pecou has been wrestling with stereotypes of black masculinity for his entire life. No matter how many degrees he earned or what job he had, he had the sense that he was only seen as a black body.

He has always used art as a way to push back, but for a long time he did not touch one particularly charged topic: police-involved shootings of black men. That changed in 2015, after a police officer shot and killed Walter Scott, a black man in Charleston. Pecou started work on a series called “Do or Die: Affect, Ritual, Resistance.” It debuted in 2016, and since then it has traveled around the country. Pecou incorporates the rituals of the West African Yoruba religion of Ifa into his work, like the ancestor honoring ceremony known as the egungun tradition.

The Alice Award, a financial award of twenty-five thousand dollars to a richly illustrated book that “makes a valuable contribution to its field and demonstrates a high standards of production” will be presented this October to Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, published in 2019 to accompany the exhibition of the same namethat opened at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina, last year. The award is given annually by Furthermore, a program of the J.M Kaplan Fund.

This year’s winner of the Alice Award has been announced: Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South. Southbound contains fifty-six photographers’ visions of the South over the first decades of the twenty-first century.  It was published to accompany an exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, College of Charleston, South Carolina, which is currently traveling to several art museums around the country. (Check here for current venues.)

For several years now we’ve been covering the Alice Award, an annual $25,000 prize for superior illustrated books sponsored by Futhermore grants in publishing, a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund. We also published a profile of the president of Furthermore, philanthropist Joan K. Davidson. The Alice Award is a worthy endeavor that deserves celebration each and every time.