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Our collective was founded by a diverse group of creative professionals living and working in Mississippi. With backgrounds in art and photography, video and film, and progressive community outreach, we share the goal of serving our communities while nurturing our creative spirits. |
Yancey Allison is a photographer living in Memphis. She received her B.A. in Art from Millsaps College and then completed her M.F.A. in Photography at the University of Memphis in 2001. Since the summer of 2000, Yancey has been photographing a community in Como, Mississippi, a rural town 50 miles south of Memphis. Her photographs reveal the intimate connections she has made with the people in the community, as well as the close ties she has to the music of the Mississippi Delta and North Mississippi. Her work has been featured on cd covers and in publicity for musicians such as Othar Turner, the North Mississippi Allstars, and Al Green, as well as in several magazines and the film 21 Grams. Judith Barlow grew up in Connecticut but has deep family ties to Mississippi, where she lives now. A Human Services graduate of Springfield College, she is working on her master’s degree in Southern Studies at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Judith is working on a documentary film about the work of her grandfather, esteemed civil rights activist C.C. Bryant, of McComb, MS. She is also developing a website and a museum project about her grandfather and the McComb movement. Amy Evans is a painter, photographer and art educator originally from Houston, Texas. She has a B.F.A in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an M. A. in Southern Studies through the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Amy is leading a community-based public art project in the Mississippi Delta and is collaborating with the communities of Drew and Rome, Mississippi. In addition, she is associate director of the Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral history program and a special projects consultant for Viking Range Corporation. See Amy's work at www.amycevans.com. Dr. Susan M. Glisson is director of the University of Mississippi's William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. She received bachelor degrees in Religion and History from Mercer University in her native Georgia, her masters in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, and her doctorate in American Studies from The College of William and Mary. She co-authored "First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights in America," forthcoming from Oxford University Press. She is also co-editing "The Human Tradition in Civil Rights," to be published by Scholarly Resources. She conducted the University of Florida's oral history project on the Southern Regional Council and directs UM's Open Doors Oral History Project on the integration of the university. She is currently working on "Midwives of Freedom," about social activists Ella Baker and Lucy Randolph Mason. Susan's special talents in advocacy and outreach stretch from rural community development to inner-city school programs. April Grayson is a documentary filmmaker born and raised in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. She received her B.A. in English from Millsaps College and is a graduate of the University of Washington's Documentary Film Production program. April has produced several short documentaries, and her work has been shown at conferences and on Seattle's PBS-affiliate, KCTS. She worked on the acclaimed PBS series "The Blues," with such renowned directors as Charles Burnett and Wim Wenders, as well as productions for the History Channel and the PBS series "American Experience." April recently directed a PieceWorks collaborative film project on the Freedom Riders of 1961 and is working on several other pieces, including a documentary on the integration of the University of Mississippi and Judith Barlow's film, The C.C. Bryant Story. Dr. Jennifer Stollman served as Acting Assistant Professor of History and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi in 2002-2003. She specializes in nineteenth-century social history with an emphasis on race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in History and English Literature, her M.A. from Wayne State University in Labor History, and her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in American History. Currently, she studies ethnic and religious identities in the Deep South. With an impressive background in fundraising and advocacy programs, Jen brings a needed expertise to the organization. She remains involved in PieceWorks while serving as Assistant Professor at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Additional board members and friends Kris Gilliland, literacy advocate and Director of the University of Mississippi Law Library Ann Pitts, attorney and arts advocate D. Allan Mitchell, poet and radio producer |