Carolina Record Shop Creative Residency
Founded in 2020, the Carolina Record Shop Creative Residency Program provides an annual opportunity for artists and curators in Buncombe County to create new research-driven work using BCSC’s historic resources, and to present their work in the Carolina Record Shop, a dedicated exhibition space in the BCSC reading room.
The goals of the Carolina Record Shop are to
- offer new, diverse perspectives on our shared history,
- identify and address gaps and/or amplify narratives that are historically underrepresented in our collection, and
- educate and inspire non-traditional users of archives and special collections to engage with the collection in new ways.
Proposals
BCSC provides research assistance, exhibition space, public program support, and promotion for artists to create work that responds to our collections and the history of Asheville, Buncombe County, and Western North Carolina.
Are you an artist or organization interested in working with us in 2027? Get in touch!
Current Exhibition
Coming Together through Agriculture & Mutual Aid in WNC: Photographs and Interviews by Carolina Corona
September 8–December 31, 2026
Special Collections Reading Room, Pack Memorial Library, 67 Haywood Street, Asheville
On view in the Buncombe County Special Collections Reading Room from September 8 through December 2026, this exhibition features photographs and interviews by artist Carolina Corona exploring the experiences of farm workers in Asheville, Fairview, Leicester, and Marion. The collection “tells a story of the power of community and of what has been accomplished through mutual aid in WNC,” says Corona. “Every farm I visited was so welcoming and open to sharing their knowledge, experience, and harvest. I could truly feel the solidarity and learned so much spending time in community with these amazing individuals.”
An opening reception will be held Tuesday, September 22, 6:00–7:30 pm, and a panel discussion featuring speakers from Semilla de Vida, Tierra Fertil, Root Cause Farm, Southside Community Farm, and PG Produce-Tomas Farms will take place Monday, October 12, 5:30–6:30 pm.
This exhibition and associated public programming feature bilingual content in English and Spanish.
Past Carolina Record Shop Artists
July 1–August 28, 2026: Artist (and BCSC staff member) Jenny Bowen brought together original art from 17 local artists to showcase Asheville’s street art legacy. Public programming included an artist workshop with Zen Sutherland and closing reception on Friday, August 28 (828 Day—a beloved, unofficial Asheville holiday).
January 20 – April 21 (extended to May 29), 2026: Ami Worthen and Elizabeth Lashay Garland presented Black Stories in Census Tract 2, a curated multimedia archive illuminating the social, cultural, and historical impact of Asheville’s Black neighborhoods — honoring the families and communities whose roots shaped Stumptown, Hill Street, and South Montford, and bringing their stories forward through imagery, memory, and collective history.
Public programming included a film screening and discussion the evening of Tuesday, April 21.
The exhibition is created by STM Multimedia and Garnet Prose + Projects in partnership with the Historic Stumptown Neighborhood Association and with support from the Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections, Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County, and Dogwood Health Trust.
November 1 – December 31, 2025: Brody Hunt and BCSC staff collaborated to organize Mountain Metropolis: The “Land of the Sky” in the Roaring ’20s, an exhibition spanning the upper and lower levels of Pack Memorial Library. Brody Hunt’s installation in the Carolina Record Shop space highlighted the historic Asheville Sessions and George Vanderbilt Hotel, including vintage recordings and information about the musical artists whose sounds were captured in 1925 as part of these momentous recording sessions.
Programs in conjunction with Mountain Metropolis include a roaring ’20s inspired kickoff party featuring live music by Russ Wilson’s 10 Kings of Jazz, Andrew Fletcher, and Brody Hunt—and lots of other events taking place as part of Asheville’s city-wide celebration of 100 years of music!
This exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of the Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections and held in conjunction with The Asheville Sessions: Celebrating 100 Years of Americana & Appalachia, presented by Explore Asheville.
June – October 2025: Isaac King presented Swannanoan Silt: Photographs by Isaac King, an exhibition consisting of nine 5”x7” gelatin silver prints selected from a series of 35mm black & white reversal slides. The slides comprise one channel of the larger Swannanoan Silt moving image installation and performance.
The images directly engage with Helene’s ecological impact, as the original rolls of film were developed using water from the contaminated French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers in the immediate months after the storm. Events in conjunction with Swannanoan Silt included an opening reception and a film screening with live musical score and artist Q&A.
March – June 2025: Swannatopia Experimental Art Club took over the Carolina Record Shop “to collect our thoughts and incubate our visions as we redirect our gaze toward the farms, forests, and legume lagoons of our future” in their exhibition And The Green Grass Grows All Around And Around And The Green Grass Grows All Around.
Many of the objects on display were created in response to the prompt “How Do We Mark The Flood?” for an event held in November 2024, as well as other projects in the months since. Works on view are paired with library research resources highlighting the histories of agriculture and arboriculture in our region. Public programming included a discussion on tree failure after Helene and a closing reception.
January – March 2025: The Czart Gallery remounted selected works from ReClaim the RAD: Flood Debris Resurrected into Art, an exhibition featuring local artists who have created new work on pieces of debris reclaimed following Tropical Storm Helene.
Featured artists include the All Caps Murals Team, Gus Cutty, Rob Czar & Ashevillish, Sennyo Senn, Rachel Stark, and Amar Stewart.
This exhibition was originally created by and displayed at Czart Gallery, opening November 2024.
January-October 2025 creative residencies were presented as part of the community memory project Come Hell or High Water, documenting the historic impact of Helene on Western North Carolina, made possible thanks to the support of the Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections and the Preservation Society of Asheville & Buncombe County.
2023-2024: Eric William Carroll performed a deep-dive exploration of scrapbooks held by Buncombe County Special Collections, highlighting the creative & lasting potential of this form and demonstrating contemporary strategies for reviving this lost art in a digital age through the library exhibition and workshops at several branch libraries. Carroll’s work on photography, science, and nature explores the differences in how we experience, organize, and represent the world. Through his photographs, books, installations, and performances he explores themes of human obsolescence, ephemerality and memory.
Learn more about scrapbooks in our collection in this blog post by Eric!
The 2024 Creative Residency was made possible in part by the Trust Fund for Buncombe County Public Libraries.
2022-2023: Miles Lamberson curated the exhibition Belonging & Non-Belonging: The History and Futures of Zines in Western North Carolina, featuring new collections of DIY self-publishing from the region, including the archives of the Asheville Zine Fest. He also led a research talk and hands-on zine workshop.
Visit the digital exhibition or read an interview with Miles about this project!
2020-2021: Honey Simone was artist-in-residence during our first creative residency launched in partnership with Engaging Collections. The inaugural project included large-scale changes to BCSC’s space, the creation of the Carolina Record Shop space, and an exhibition on Black history in Asheville, focusing on the 1970s.
