U.Va. Art Museum Southern Legacy Colloquia Continues with William Williams, Craig Barton and Lisa Henry Benham

Nov. 2, 2007 — Throughout the fall and spring, the University of Virginia Art Museum will present colloquia that explore what it is that makes us American, and the roots of our Southern legacy. The program supports three of the museum’s exhibitions, “William Christenberry: Site/Possession,” “The Dresser Trunk Project,” and “The Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art.” The series continues Nov. 13 with a talk at 5:30 p.m. by William Williams, exhibition curator and associate professor, School of Architecture; Craig Barton, chairman, Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; and Lisa Henry Benham, assistant professor, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Utah.

Their lecture will focus on issues raised by the museum’s current exhibition, “The Dresser Trunk Project.” Each speaker created one of the trunks featured in the exhibition, each representing a different place of refuge during the Jim Crow era. Each of the sites is associated with the Southern Crescent, the passenger train line that connects New Orleans and New York. The trunks contain stories, photographs, maps, hotel registers and computer-generated models of the way places looked or might have looked at the time. They tell stories of places where people went in the segregation-era South to be safe and be together, and give an idea as to how the South looked and functioned in the time of segregation. Williams, the exhibition's curator, and Barton and Benham will discuss the trunks that they created, along with issues raised by the exhibition as a whole.

The museum is open to the public without charge Tuesday through Sunday, 1-5 p.m.  Parking is available on Bayly Drive, off Rugby Road. 


Related Events:


Dec. 5, 5:30 p.m.
“Imagining Hale County”
Grace Hale, associate professor, Corcoran Department of History; Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History; and graduate student Scott Matthews, all of the University of Virginia, discuss the images and heritage of Hale County in conjunction with the exhibit "William Christenberry: Site/Possession." 

Jan. 25, 4 p.m.
“Southern Music, American Music”
Richard Will, associate professor, and Melvin Butler, assistant professor, McIntire Department of Music, and graduate student Michael Bishop, all of the University of Virginia, discuss the significance of Southern music. 

March 28, 4 p.m.
“Writing the South”
Area writers read and discuss selections by Southern writers.







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