Save This Piece Exhibit Opening Reception
Save This Piece
Photographic Installation Created in Community by Lauren Rutten
September 25 – November 14, 2026
Madison County Arts Council
Marshall, North Carolina
The Madison County Arts Council is pleased to present Save This Piece, a new exhibition by Marshall-based artist Lauren Rutten, on view September 25 through November 14, 2026. The exhibition is the first major public presentation of an ongoing photographic and community-engaged project that emerged in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding of Marshall.
In Save This Piece, visitors encounter 24 abstract, large-scale photographs alongside writings contributed by more than 150 members of the local and volunteer community. Created during the first months of recovery, the photographs focus not on the destruction itself but on what the flood left behind: traces of silt, rust, mud, and altered surfaces throughout downtown Marshall.
Each archival pigment print is finished with hand-drawn 24-karat gold leaf lines tracing the course of the French Broad River. The gold references the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, in which broken objects are repaired with gold rather than concealing the damage. The work also draws on the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, or repairing the world.
“I wasn’t interested in documenting disaster as much as paying attention to what remained,” says Rutten. “These photographs ask how beauty continues to exist alongside grief, and how a community slowly reimagines itself after profound change.”
The community writings extend the photographs into a shared act of remembrance. Collected during a writing project held on the first anniversary of the flood, the texts bring personal experiences of the disaster and recovery into conversation with Rutten’s photographs.
The project began while Rutten was volunteering in downtown Marshall during the early months of recovery. While shoveling mud from the flooded Marshall High Studios, she noticed the marks and traces left by the river and made photographs as she worked alongside other volunteers. Rather than documenting the destruction directly, she became interested in the evidence the flood left behind.
Coinciding with the second anniversary of the flood, visitors to the gallery will be invited to contribute their own written reflections. These new responses will become part of the evolving project, extending Save This Piece as an ongoing record of community memory and asking how time changes our understanding of what happened, and what we carry forward from it. The exhibition marks an important stage in the project’s development toward a book interweaving the photographs and community writings.
An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, September 25, from 5-8 pm. There will be an artist talk on Friday, October 16 at 7 pm. The community writing project will accompany the exhibition for its duration.
About the Artist
Lauren Rutten is a visual artist, writer, and educator based in Marshall, North Carolina. Rutten explores themes of memory, repair, impermanence, and our relationship to place. Rooted in contemplative practice, her work transforms ordinary and often overlooked moments into meditations on beauty, vulnerability, and human connection. Her work has been exhibited at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, The Bascom: A Center for the Visual Arts, Weizenblatt Gallery, and galleries throughout the New York metropolitan area.
For more information, please contact the Madison County Arts Council or visit Lauren Rutten’s website.
