Raymond Baccari & Justin Morgan Kennedy: Hear + There (Reception)

Raymond Baccari is an MFA candidate in art at Western Carolina University whose interactive sound-based installations, he says, are driven by his “interest in introversion.” He’s well complemented by his collaborator for this Carrack exhibit, which runs through August 11 after Thursday evening’s opening reception. Justin Morgan Kennedy is an associate professor of sculpture at WCU whose artistic outlook is arguably extroverted, in that it is anthropological, focused on the study of dreams and shamanistic practices. For Hear + There, the pair has wired rocks for sound and mounted them upon thin rods on a stage of yellow pine, all collected along the rural waterways around where they live. The result is a slice of rural terroir—buttressed by projections, GPS-mapped collagraph prints, and other artifacts—transplated into an urban gallery to create an interactive experience that is visually striking but altogether meditative. —Brian Howe