HERDCORE ONLINE EXHIBITION
COVID 19 is not the first global pandemic, but it is the first in the age of rabid connectivity. In 2020, amidst stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, and the growing ubiquity of such phrases as “essential worker,” “superspreader” and “social distance,” many of us found ourselves simultaneously physically isolated and yet intimately and consistently connected to one another in the safer, more sterile, digital world.
HERDCORE, part photo series, part Party PPE” fashion line, is both a blithe diversion from and somber look at the lasting cultural effects of a global pandemic in the age of connectivity. This collaboration between Central Collective co-founders Dale Mackey and Shawn Poynter vacillates between whimsical, unsettling, hopeful and cynical, echoing the range of emotions collectively experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to this day.
HERDCORE: Mackey and Poynter reframe the mask in latest show - Knoxville News Sentinel
East Tennessee artist sells Christmas-themed masks to brighten up the holidays - WBIR
MEET THE HERD
(they’re not as scary as they look)