​Kelley Ann Walsh

​I am an unintending artist-instigator; I am Appalachian.  I do not wish to pick fights and yet my inability to ignore perceived injustices to the often-overlooked combined with my desire to be brave, by which I mean to be honest, lead me to choices that an on occasion some have suggested otherwise.

 

My research explores communities that have a strong group identity that is in some way place-specific.  I am particularly interested in the intersection of class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability.  Reoccurring themes in my work include Appalachia, neurodivergence, madness, shame, trauma, (hyper)sexuality, connection to place, and feelings of displacement.  My research is telescopic, coming in and out of focus as my interests expand and clarify.  I investigate how aspects of identity that I experience as being culturally specific to Appalachia are simultaneously cross-culturally shared with other communities. By oscillating back and forth between the micro and macro, I complicate narratives about geographically-specific, invisibilized communities by highlighting intersectionalities that are experienced globally.

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I investigate collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to artmaking, scholarship, and activism in an effort to create work that ethically explores the diverse identities of individuals and regions that are marginalized within dominant society.  In 2018, I collaborated with Affrilachian scholar-artist Yunina Barbour-Payne to create “Where I’m from the Mountains are Red, White, and Yellow.”  This interdisciplinary work challenges stereotypes about Appalachia and its people by questioning how our associations with color influence our understanding of race, class, and place.

 

I am more interested in creating work, both solo and in collaboration with others, that is complex, honest, and contradictory that work that is clearly legible because it has been overly simplified.  My personal explorations of Appalachian identity have led me to investigate the abstract concept of “white trash” in literal ways.  I am exploring white trash by way of my wedding dress, marriage and divorce licenses, flours, and drugs as physical manifestations of “white trash” as white materials that are potentially, or even inherently, trash in that they are cheap, wasteful, poisonous, or demoralizing.  By making the abstract literal, I am redefining “white trash” in ways that I find more sensitive, honest, and imbued with the potential to empower and heal by working in coalition across different racial, ethnic, class, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability identities and experiences.

           

What of the relationships between violence, trauma, regional idiosyncrasies, and forgiveness?  What of traumas perpetuated by ongoing legacies of governmental inference at the points of distribution?  What of Appalachia? How can one think of these and not be moved?