Assistant Professor of Practice in Studio Art Annie May Johnston participated in two residences over the summer months, including Edition/Basel which invited artists working in intaglio, relief, lithography and letterpress techniques to the Druckwerk Printmaking Studio in central Basel, Switzerland, concluding with an exhibition, Through-seen, at the Basel Papiermühle Museum. Durchsicht was the theme, chosen collaboratively and interpreted individually by participants during their time in the workshop. Other participating artists included Beth Fein, Carrie Ann Plank, Gertrud Genhart, Hether Leier, Hilda Lindström, Margarit Lehmann, Megan Adie, Meri Andreasyan, Sean P. Morrisey, Senso Stampa, Sieglinde Wittwer and Wei Wang.
In addition to Edition/Basel, Johnston also participated in Tusa, Sicily's Officina Stamperia del Notaio that concluded in a solo exhibition at 621 Gallery in Tallahassee titled Let me tell you this. In reference to the new body of work, Johnston wrote:
I use printmaking, drawing, painting and digital processes in an attempt to visually describe our surrounding environment – most recently interior performative objects and spaces. In this post-truth era, my newest body of work aspires to conflate fact and fiction - bringing together artworks that can be interpreted as a documentation of life, memories or relics, or a study of the moment from a place in the future - existing detached from a point of orientation. At first emotions and feelings flourish, prompting grand hope and possibility but as time mutates and transforms, the constant hum of the memento mori becomes louder and more distinct. The work depicts a secluded universe that is performative both visually and experientially. Combined and in the form of a silent play, the objects and spaces form a dark subtle magical realism that reinforces the experience of art as an instrument for myth making.
Johnston's work was also included in a group exhibition at Fjord gallery in Philadelphia titled Terra Not So Firma.