ATHENS, GA.- Off the Coast of Paradise is the first major exhibition and publication to explore the profound impact of Ossabaw Island—an undeveloped, 26,000-acre barrier island off the coast of Savannah—on artists in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century. The show, which opens at the Jepson Center, Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia in March 2026, focuses on a pair of revolutionary multidisciplinary residency programs known as the Ossabaw Island Project (OIP) and Genesis that ran on the island from 1961–1982 and their legacies in its examination of Ossabaw as a site for creative experimentation.

Taking its name from a poem written by renowned poet and former Genesis member, Henri Cole, the exhibition and publication feature the work of internationally renowned artists who either participated in the residency programs or who have spent time on Ossabaw in the years since, including Harry Bertoia, Agnes Denes, Allison Janae Hamilton, Marcy Hermansader, Suzanne Jackson, Ellen Lanyon, Doris Lee, Sally Mann, Michael Mazur, Ross McElwee, Athena Tacha, Betty Tompkins, and Anne Truitt.

These artists have considered the island through a myriad of lenses in their work, including the historical, the environmental, the social, the cultural, and the personal. The lavishly illustrated exhibit catalogue features new scholarly essays and first-hand accounts on topics including Sandy West’s ecofeminist vision for Ossabaw, African American artists in the Georgia Sea Islands, and Gullah Geechee lived experience in oral history and film.

Erin Dunn is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, where she has been a member of the curatorial team since 2014. She has organized numerous exhibitions including Watershed: Contemporary Landscape Photography, Feels like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton, and Frank Stewart’s Nexus: An American Photographer’s Journey, 1960s to the Present in collaboration with The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Her writing has appeared in the exhibition catalogue for Phillip J. Hampton, Late Night Polaroids: Photographs by Emily Earl, and Seven Rivers, a monograph of photographer Ansley West Rivers. In addition, Dunn spearheads Telfair’s #art912 initiative, which raises the visibility and promotes the vitality of artists living and working in Savannah. Dunn was the recipient of the Fall 2023 Margie E. West Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. She holds a BA from Emory University and an MA from the University of Georgia.

Beryl Gilothwest is a curator and art historian based in New York. He is the Deputy Director of Research and Exhibitions at the Calder Foundation, New York, which is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, preserving, and interpreting the art and archives of Alexander Calder. He has collaborated with institutions worldwide on exhibitions of Calder's work, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Musée national Picasso-Paris; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among many others. As a writer, he has contributed to exhibition catalogues and such publications as The Brooklyn Rail, Art in America, and Degree Critical. He holds a BA from Vassar College and is currently completing an MA at Hunter College, The City University of New York.


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