On display at Hunt Gallery at Mary Baldwin University from October 27th through December 5th, 2025: https://marybaldwin.edu/hunt-gallery
with interactive events happening on October 30th, November 14th, November 15th, and December 6th. See below poster for more details.
Shift Witness is a collaborative installation created and coordinated by Jordan Fust, Shoz Frantz, M Greenwald, Taylor Hanigosky, Anne Hopestill Kappers, and Victoria Moyer. There are a variety of events that accompany the show both in the gallery space and at the South River in Waynesboro, VA.
The installation and participatory events reflect an ongoing process of embodied research and ritual alongside “Loth” Spring and the South River. Our processes incorporate dance, fiber arts, sound, and other modalities. The collected images, writing, video fragments, found ephemera, textiles, ritual craft objects, and guided workshops engage with a set of questions around disturbance ecology, animate landscapes, non-linear mythology, and shifting patterns of relationships.
The South River has been the site of major industrial pollution, which if you aren’t already familiar with, you’ll learn more about as you flip through some of the zines we made or take a walk by the river and read the informational plaques…
there is no easy way to sum up the complicated history of the South River, the spring-fed tributaries, and the shifting assemblages of inhabitants and participants, but we can say that our intention is to honor the complexity of interwoven stories and to promote a spirit of reverent, respectful, even devotional relationship with the river, springs, and land. We have been called to work with this place, but all places are alive and sacred in their own way. Like dormant seeds, we seek to open cracks in the concrete slabs of extractive modes that we’ve been raised in when it comes to relating to place.
Panel, Workshops, and Performance Details Below
link to download poster if not visible on mobile device:
Text from the poster with all event dates and more info:
Opening Reception: October 30th, 4:30-6:00pm; Hunt Gallery; Artist Talk at 5:15pm
Panel Dialogue: November 14th, 6:00-7:30pm; Hunt Gallery (Mary Baldwin University)
Topic: “Histories and Futures of People-Place Relationships at the South River” with Featured Guests:
Victoria Ferguson: Victoria Persinger Ferguson is an enrolled citizen of the Monacan Indian Nation and is a graduate of Marshall University. She has 30 years background in researching science methodologies and historical documentation on the daily living habits of the Eastern Siouan populations up through the early European colonization period. Victoria has been involved with public history as a historical interpreter for over 25 years and participated in educational documentaries. She serves in the position of Program Director for Solitude/Fraction on the campus of Virginia Tech and is the Presidential Ambassador to Native Nations.
Mary Katharine Froehlich: Mary Katharine is a passionate community organizer and an advocate for connection between the South River Watershed and all of its inhabitants. She is perhaps best known as the founder and co-owner of Stone Soup Books, where she inspires critical dialogue with regional authors, place-based stories, and environmentally-engaged issues. Mary Katherine serves on local boards such as South River Watershed Coalition.
Meghan Williamson: Meghan Williamson’s work supporting grassroots, non-profit, and municipal projects of land and community connection take her up and down the Shenandoah Valley. She serves as a professional writer, consultant, and editor within many valley-based organizations and acts as a connective tissue among folks involved in local food systems, bicycle coalitions, land stewardship projects, and timberframing guilds.
Plus other local community members!
Liminal Plant Walk and Movement Workshops: November 15th, 1-4:30pm; Loth Springs Natural Area (600 Race Ave, Waynesboro)
Plant Walk 1pm-2:30pm, Movement Workshop 2:45pm-4:30pm
In the plant walk, we will meet plants who are both alive and dead, whose seeds prepare for the next generations while other vegetative parts die back. We’ll learn about the plant communities making a home in a landscape marked by disturbance and flux. In the movement workshop, we’ll take the connection methods into a more somatic realm and present dance-adjacent prompts & practices that reflect the processes our group works with. Participants can attend one or both sessions. Donations appreciated but not required.
Participatory Closing Performance: December 6th, 5pm; South River Greenway (Meet at 101 Short St)
“Grief Parade” is an interactive processional performance/ritual to engage with the interwoven threads of personal and collective memory, grief, and love, rooted in connection to the South River. Participants who would like to walk a 1/2 mile portion of the Greenway and engage with facilitated prompts by the artists are welcome to meet at the new South River Preserve Parking Lot (101 Short St) at 5pm for brief instructions. Participants who would like to witness/receive the procession are invited to gather at 5:30 at the procession’s destination at Loth Spring (Parking on Arch st, past the intersection with 14th). Costumes, masks, and dress are welcome in ways that convey reverence for the river and the interconnectedness of grief and watersheds.
e-mail victoria.maria012@gmail.com with any questions!
Artist-made zines/booklets. Each member of our collective contributed to writing, compiling, and designing a small booklet that dives deeper into an intersecting theme of this project. The zines feature poetry, plant surveys, stories, and place-based research into fiber history, geology, and myth. Set of 7 titles. Available in the gallery to be read freely, or available for purchase to read on your own. If you would like to purchase, we suggest $10 per individual booklet, or $50 for the full set of artist-made booklets. Send inquiries to thornypioneer@gmail.com or pickup/donate in the gallery space or at one of our events where we will have the sets available.
Titles include:
Breath and Poetry for the South River; The Dancers of a Growing Disorder; The Stories the Flora Tell: Plant Patterns at the South River and Loth Springs; Where Water Meets Rock Meets Bodies: Katabasis; About the Spring I Visit; A Grief Parade; After Pyrite Over Coal: Rayon in Waynesboro
