“Hanging By a Thread,” Lynne Scott Constantine, 2022, digital photo composite, 16″ x 20″

“Awaiting Further Transformation” was an art exhibition and performance event presented at Dare Arts in Manteo, NC, in August and September 2022. In March and April 2023, the exhibition and performance were presented at the Currituck County Arts Council Gallery in Moyock, NC. The project was made possible in part by an artist’s support grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

The art exhibition included 32 individual artworks: 16 mixed-media artworks by Suzanne Scott Constantine, and 16 photo-based artworks by Lynne Scott Constantine. The exhibition also included an interactive component: fabric panels with handmade tags on which participants were invited to add their own ideas about hope and transformation.

The performance event, “Awaiting Further Transformation: A Performance for Eight Voices,” was held in conjunction with the art exhibition’s opening at each of the venues. The performance was an original work that considered the question, “What might be the outcome of all the suffering and upheaval of the last three years? The work included poetry and stories by five community artists and writers, in addition to Lynne’s and Suzanne’s contributions. The musical director, Suzanne Blackstock, researched musical possibilities as the text took shape, and selected and performed six solo flute compositions to support the narrative arc. The full list of creator/participants includes

View or download the one-hour full-length video here: AFT full-length video

Click on any of the images below to see a larger version and learn more about the work.

Suzanne’s work

Lynne’s Work

Artist Statement

All of us have lived through and participated in dramatic changes in society and in our personal lives during nearly two years of Covid-induced isolation. 

We saw extraordinary courage among the medical professionals and ordinary people who could not shelter in place or work from home and who kept us fed, cared for, and supplied with what we needed. 

We saw a country and a world shaken by grievous loss and economic disaster, touching all but disproportionately visited upon the poor, the old, and on communities of color. 

We saw the same courage when millions took to the streets, despite Covid, to demand justice for victims of an equally fearsome pandemic: the more than 400 years of violence against the survival, sovereignty,and dignity of Black people. 

Every event seemed cataclysmic, epochal, world-changing. Then the voices began—in the media, academia, churches, and homes, on the steps of statehouses and courthouses—asserting that we, as a society, have been “completely and permanently transformed” by these intense happenings. 

Yes, “we are forever transformed” feels right. Surely all of what we have gone through meant something. But what does it mean? 

Today, as we emerge from our Covid cocoons, the world looks pretty similar to what it was before. 

Deadly gun violence continues. The hatred preached by white supremacists continues. The ferocity of fires, flooding, and drought is increasing, as global temperatures continue to rise. The lifesaving principles of infection control continue to be symbolic battlegrounds in escalating culture wars. And most people still live one unexpected expense away from personal economic meltdown.

How does transformation play out? In traditional myths and stories of transformation, the moment of metamorphosis is the focus of attention. After that—who knows? 

Our hope is that the stories, symbols, and energies presented in the exhibition and in the opening performance inspire you to wonder what’s next for you, for your family, for our country, and for our world. 

Surely, we can imagine possibilities worthy of the lives we’ve lost and the upheavals we’ve experienced.

Surely, we CAN be forever transformed—if we are willing to think deeply, love fiercely, and act bravely.