Our collective was founded by a diverse group of creative professionals living and working in Mississippi, or with deep Mississippi ties. 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. See Yancey's work at www.yanceyallison.com    Judith Barlow grew up in Connecticut but has deep family ties to Mississippi. A Human Services graduate of Springfield College, she strengthened her Mississippi ties when she moved to Oxford, MS, to work 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 life of her grandfather, late 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 has lead community-based public art projects in the Mississippi Delta with the communities of Drew and Rome, Mississippi. She is award-winning director of the Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral history program and exhibits her art in several galleries. See Amy's work at www.amycevans.com.    Dr. Susan M. Glisson is executive 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, from Oxford University Press, and edited The Human Tradition in Civil Rights, published by Scholarly Resources. She is a contributor to Telling Stories That Change the World and to the Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working Class History. Susan's special talents in advocacy and outreach stretch from rural community development to inner-city school programs.    April Grayson is a filmmaker and artist 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 will complete an M.F.A. in Film from the San Francisco Art Institute in May 2009. She has made several short documentaries, as well as a number of experimental films, and her work has been shown on PBS-affiliates, FreeSpeech TV, and in film festivals throughout the world. 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 directed a PieceWorks collaborative film project on the Freedom Riders of 1961 and worked with Judith Barlow on her documentary, The C.C. Bryant Story. See April's work at www.aprilgrayson.com    Leyla Modirzadeh is an artist currently residing in Oxford, Mississippi. Her recent concentrations have been film and writing and directing documentary theatre projects such as “Secret Histories: Oxford,” inspired by her work with Ping Chong and Company. Her recent film “Hot-Dogopolis: the Story of Greeks in Birmingham” was commissioned by Southern Foodways Alliance and screened at the Potlikker Film Festival. She worked as an actress for 10 years in professional theatre, including A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, Wisdom Bridge Theatre in Chicago, and with Ping Chong’s Company at La Mama in New York City. Her animated and live action films have been screened at The Anthology Film Archive, The Pioneer Theatre (both New York City), The Potlikker Film Festival (Oxford, Mississippi), and the Portland Cultural Festival. Leyla has a BA from University of California at Berkeley and two M.F.A.s: in Fine Art, from the Pratt Institute of New York, and in Acting, from the University of Washington. She currently teaches theater at the University of Mississippi.    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. She remains involved in PieceWorks while serving as Assistant Professor of History at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.    Additional board members and friends    Kris Gilliland, literacy advocate and Director of the University of Mississippi Law Library    Ann Pitts, attorney and arts advocate     HOME