In her ongoing series The Southern Review, Bethany Collins uses pages taken from the celebrated Louisiana State University Press-published literary journal. Heavily applying charcoal to the pages, Collins obscures the text, leaving visible the titles, authors, page numbers, headers, and footers. While these interventions could be perceived as redactions, Collins instead sees them as representative of her taking control of what it means to her to be a Southern artist. “I cannot help but see my obsession with language through the lens of my body,” Collins explains. “In the first Southern Review, I initially threw away those imperfect, messy, and ripped pages until realizing that my sooty fingerprints all over the surface was the work.” To Collins, these fingerprints and obfuscations “show the history of my touch and my reading,” embedding herself and her body into the narrative of the South.
