Slow Exposures: A Juried Exhibition Celebrating Photography of the Rural South

20th annual festival that features photography that captures the beauty, the complexity, and the contradictions of the rural American South. Winner of the 2015 Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities, the show prides itself on being a blend of art and history. Photo exhibitions are displayed in late 19th-century buildings throughout Zebulon and Concord in Pike County, which was founded in 1822. The settings underscore the show’s founders’ goal of demonstrating the value of repurposing—and, saving—historic buildings.

The main show is presented in Concord, in a 19th-century building that still bears the marks of 120 years of trading groceries and dry goods to the area’s sharecroppers and tenant farmers.

Show visitors receive a map of the county that guides them to seven satellite shows. These sites include the PopUp Tour that features five individual and group shows staged in nontraditional venues in and around the courthouse square in Zebulon. Show-goers will collect a unique stamp in their PopUp Passport at each show to exchange for tickets to participate in the PopUp Print Raffle at the Saturday Supper. Other satellite shows and a photo book-signing roundtable will be presented in historic buildings and barns in the area.

“We can't wait to greet photographers and photography lovers to Pike County and the SlowExposures experience," said Chris Curry, co-chair of the SlowExposures team. "Through the course of the show, visitors take home memories, genuine experiences, inspiration, and, maybe, challenges to long-held assumptions of what constitutes this region,” Curry said.