Shell-Shocked Shadows: The Covid 19 Series

First Floor Hallway of Joyner Library, East Carolina University

Exhibit Dates: October 13th - Extended! This exhibit is still on view on the first floor of Joyner Library at East Carolina University

The black and white print series “Shell-Shocked Shadows” created by artist, Susan Martin Meggs represents a personal response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The response is paradoxical with multiple layers of meaning. Shells and beach are associated with family vacations, tranquility. There is the aspect of transparency of the shells in particular. The transparent “jingle” shells suggest the elusive, transparent nature of the virus and by their shape, a pox. At the same time, shells suggest a relaxing family vacation pastime: collecting shells on a beach. Shells are also skeletons of once living beings, and broken shells suggest loss and broken lives.  The beach and the ocean itself are paradoxes of peace and calm and beauty, versus at the same time always embodying the threat of ferocious storms, flooding and erosion.  The shadows bring up a host of hackneyed narratives: we are shadows of our former selves; the virus is a shadowy, elusive, a threat that lives in the shadows; implications of a looming darkness or an imaginary presence. Again, the paradoxes of light and sunshine and children playing and the shadow of the unseen, or shadow people.

For more information contact Charlotte Fitz Daniels: fitzdanielsc16@ecu.edu  252 328-0287

This exhibition is sponsored by the Friends of Joyner Library