The Bascom is proud to present our 4th annual call for entries for Emergence: A Survey of Southeastern Studio Programs. Emergence will showcase the work of faculty and student pairs to celebrate the role of teaching and mentoring in artist development. Faculty applicants should identify a student to create a joint submission. Each submission consists of two works- one by the faculty mentor + one by the student.

Our mountains are among some of the oldest in the world. Over time, geologic processes have resulted in a complex landscape that is home to a great diversity of habitats for plants and animals. Home to more flowering plant species than anywhere else in the temperate zone, 250 are found nowhere else but here.

The plateau is the second wettest place in the continental U.S., contains a great number of high peaks, and of course the highest and greatest number of waterfalls in the eastern U.S. Our mountains feed the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico watersheds flowing through six major rivers and providing drinking water throughout the southeast.

These mountains have been inhabited by humans for a long time. Early Highlanders recognized that the forests and scenic views were at risk and banded together in 1909 to conserve an iconic mountain called Satulah, adding to that Sunset and Sunrise Rocks at Ravenel Park in 1914. This effort led to the creation of the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust which has now conserved over 3,700 acres in 127 places.

It is the deep love of and also need for our wild and natural places that drives these conservation triumphs.

The Bascom is pleased to continue its ongoing programmatic partnership with the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust, reimagining the relationship through works in the photographic medium. The images in this exhibition present an artistic interpretation by regional photographers of the beauty, bio-diversity, and expanse of the properties that the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust stewards, and that help define the plateau as a place like no other.