An Evening with Southern Studies Fellows Morgan Thomas & Ben Winans
Event Information
About this event
Waterborne: Both Toxic and Miraculous
Join us for a mixed media exhibition exploring contaminated Southern legacies through the lens of baptism. The event will feature live readings as well as digital and physical artwork approaching the rite of baptism as gender affirmation, as a legacy of evangelical Christianity, and as a reminder of the value of our watersheds.
About the Fellowship
This collaborative fellowship program from Chapman Cultural Center and Hub City Writers Project is possible by grant funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation. This first-of-its-kind program will bring one early-career artist and one early career-writer to Spartanburg, South Carolina, for a nine-month fellowship of research, creativity, teaching, and travel, culminating in a collaborative project informed by the region. This program is geared toward artists and writers who are interested in immersing themselves in the culture of the American South.
Fellows will travel throughout the Southeast to conduct research at cultural and educational institutions as they develop ideas for a collaborative project that expands the understanding of the modern South.
About the Fellows
Morgan Thomas Morgan Thomas is a writer from the Gulf Coast. Their work has appeared in The Atlantic, American Short Fiction, the Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. They’ve received support from the Bread Loaf Work-Study Program and the Fulbright Foundation. They are currently a Southern Studies Fellow in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Benjamin Winans (b. 1987, Raleigh, NC) is an installation artist, printmaker, and scholar whose work addresses the intersection of evangelical Christianity and American culture, loss of faith, and the search for grace and redemption. He graduated in 2021 with an MFA in visual art from Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. The recipient of the Jean Paul Slusser Award and the John Roos Scholarship for Artists Engaged in the Humanities, Winans has exhibited nationally and internationally; including a solo exhibition in Richmond, VA and group shows in Richmond, Ann Arbor, MI, Providence, RI, Wichita, KS, and Lucknow, India. He is currently living in Spartanburg, South Carolina where he is the inaugural Watson Brown Southern Studies Fellow.
