Co-Creating an Heirloom
Simone Salvo & June Southworth
Press
“When the Artists are Archivists,” The Boston Globe
On view
Manninen Center for the Arts
Endicott College, Beverly, MA
October 1, 2021–January 7, 2022
Endicott College, Beverly, MA
October 1, 2021–January 7, 2022
Opening reception
October 28, 2021 | 4:30–6:30 pm
Artist talk at 5:00 pm
Artist talk at 5:00 pm
About the project
To many, June Southworth is a lifelong artist and teacher. To me, she is a grandmother and a muse. And to a select few, scattered across timelines and time zones, June is the founder and president of the Amazing Women’s Club.
I first began recording my grandmother’s stories and creative legacy as an act of preservation. At 93-years-old, June’s memory is fading, prompting both a new urgency and set of challenges in piecing together the remaining fragments. What began as a process of collection has expanded to include a series of speculative investigations on the nature of memory and the emotional residua that is passed down through the matrilineal line.
The making of this project has subsumed the importance of a resulting artifact or linear narrative, and in turn, recast the form of an heirloom from a singular object to something that embodies collaboration.
The Amazing Women’s Club presents an intergenerational dialogue: June Southworth’s sculptures, newly restored and shown for the first time in decades, alongside photography and new media work by Simone Salvo that both chronicles and draws inspiration from their relationship; a granddaughter and her grandmother, in June’s words, “making sense out of nonsense.”
I first began recording my grandmother’s stories and creative legacy as an act of preservation. At 93-years-old, June’s memory is fading, prompting both a new urgency and set of challenges in piecing together the remaining fragments. What began as a process of collection has expanded to include a series of speculative investigations on the nature of memory and the emotional residua that is passed down through the matrilineal line.
The making of this project has subsumed the importance of a resulting artifact or linear narrative, and in turn, recast the form of an heirloom from a singular object to something that embodies collaboration.
The Amazing Women’s Club presents an intergenerational dialogue: June Southworth’s sculptures, newly restored and shown for the first time in decades, alongside photography and new media work by Simone Salvo that both chronicles and draws inspiration from their relationship; a granddaughter and her grandmother, in June’s words, “making sense out of nonsense.”