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Preserving History with Public Art

Volunteers at the University of Mississippi Museum restored gravestones in rural communities. (Photo: Photocase)
Volunteers at the University of Mississippi Museum restored gravestones in rural communities. (Photo: Photocase)
Huge art projects like wrappings or anonymous snarky graffiti, posters and stickers are an integral part of the urban landscape. Limited financing or a new coat of paint gives this kind of public art an ephemeral “here today, gone tomorrow” quality. Lacking the grand scale, some public art integrates into its environment, engaging community members in dialogue and creating a lasting change of perspective.
A former project at the University of Mississippi-Oxford Museum in conjunction with rural northern Mississippi communities exemplifies this type of public art. Led by university museum educator Chandra Williams, volunteers worked with community elders to identify unmarked or illegibly marked graves. Gravestones were poured and set, replacing the old temporary markers which were decaying.
The project connected with local historians and community members compiling oral histories of these black communities and their churches in the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Little documentation on the churches’ histories existed previously.
Bringing public art to rural communities, Williams hoped to make communities aware of the museum’s activities and break down associations between exclusivity and art.

29 August 2006 | 10.00am (CEST) | posted by Marie | |
TAGS Education | Demography & Migration | Ethnicity & Culture | Arts & Literature | History & Heritage

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