Mode of Program Participation
Community Organizing and Educational Programming
Participation Type
Workshop
Session Title
Session Title: Where Am I? Contextualizing Location through Cultural Landscape
Session Abstract or Summary
UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention describes Cultural Landscape as a combination of humans and nature that “express a long and intimate relationship between peoples and their environment.” Often, when we visit a location of our past, they evoke memories and sensations of our personal lives there. We may remember ourselves as part of a community in that geographic space. While personal memories bring important context for our own lives, can these memories be expanded upon, for example, with knowledge of the history of the location? Are there ways linking the past with personal memory also may contextualize the space, and the communities within it? Further, who walked before us in this same path, and can they help us in understanding ourselves and the larger community?
Providing examples from projects in art and research from Appalachian history, workshop leaders will describe their own experience of combining history and geography with personal story to weave a fabric useful for inclusion in their work. Through maps, the internet, books, and your smart phone, we will explore how we might as individuals bring these stories and histories into our work and art. For educators, we will provide ideas for including this type of investigation in instruction. Finally, can these new contexts provide us with not only an appreciation of place, but move beyond nostalgia or reminiscence, and inform and support current efforts for social justice within those locations and communities? Bring a memory and let’s see where we can start.
Presentation #1 Title
Session Title: Where Am I? Contextualizing Location through Cultural Landscape
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Please see workshop summary above.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Dr. Chris Dockery (PhD University of Georgia, MFA Clemson) is Associate Professor in Visual Arts at the University of North Georgia. She coordinates the art education program, teaches art and in 2012 was appointed the Appalachian Teaching Fellow. Current grant work includes the Appalachian Teaching Project "Cultivating Community: How to provide public access to heirloom seeds and stories at rural libraries." Recent research projects include "Farm School," a story of a generation and a region of Appalachia through a series of illustrated artists books.
Presentation #2 Title
Session Title: Where Am I? Contextualizing Location through Cultural Landscape
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Please see workshop summary above.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Frank Brannon is a graduate of the MFA in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama and proprietor of SpeakEasy Press. A member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, his current focus as a maker includes reinterpretations of the book form in consideration of location, history and culture. He is the 2016-2017 Vaughan Fellow with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, documenting historical Cherokee printing and Cherokee language revitalization through art.
Session Title: Where Am I? Contextualizing Location through Cultural Landscape
Please see workshop summary above.
