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Hi! Happy Friday.
Hope you’re holding up okay. This weekend, I’m taking my dog to the beach for the first time, which is a wonderfully straightforward thing to look forward to. (Dog: Ocean: Sand: Zoomies). I’ll report back.
Housekeeping: The Best of the Best Triangle Readers Poll is live! As a reminder, this longstanding feature is a reader poll—editorial staff is not involved with the nomination or voting process. So if you love something, go to bat for it in the votes, and look for the results on December 11. Also: The INDY is now on Bluesky. Find us here.
OK, onto culture news from around the Triangle. Thank you for reading!
Maya Freelon at Historic Stagville. Photo by Angelica Edwards.
elsewhere in the culture section
Our cover story this week is on artist Maya Freelon’s new exhibition, Whippersnappers, at Historic Stagville. Using artful tissue-paper sculptures and archival monoprints from the Library of Congress, Freelon reimagines the lives of enslaved children. It opens tomorrow.
I recommend a visit—especially if you are processing this moment in America, and especially if you have children. Seeing grounds where more than 900 people were once enslaved is not exactly fun, but it is unsettling, fascinating, and meaningfully connects dots about the place we live. Hearing a guide talk about forced family separations among enslaved families brought political policies pretty immediately into grim relief.
But the message is bigger than the violence that shrouds it: Freelon’s colorful, free-form medium gives dimension to the past and the children who lived in it, imagining how they might play, laugh, and experience the world.
Bonus reading: How Stagville helps families find enslaved ancestors, meeting the brains behind Open Durham. Also: The Stagville Memorial Project is a beautiful resource for mapping the past into the present.
Have you ever been to Shadowbox Studio? You’ll need to navigate through some storage units, first, but as writer Grace Yannotta spells out, a world of offbeat arts performances and events awaits. Shadowbox celebrates ten years this month.
Glenn McDonald’s list of movies to see this month. (Anora is supposed to be amazing!). A delightful profile of Angus Barn’s most popular greeter: 96-year-old former UNC basketball player Walter Hilliard Greene. Peregrine, an intriguing new Raleigh restaurant, opens in early 2025.
out and about in the triangle
Just two things today: If you’re looking for some cathartic community activities, the annual Liberty Arts Pour is this weekend and the Scrap Exchange’s annual SmashFest, which is exactly what it sounds like, is next weekend.
out and about in the world
Death, divorce, and photos in small-town Ohio. The 25 most influential cookbooks from the last 100 years. An election analysis I found helpful. The Paris Review’s “Car Crushes” essay series is fun. Note App epiphanies. A spooky new Angel Olsen release.
— Sarah Edwards —
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