On February 8, 2011 the University of Georgia Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Interiors sponsored a photographic exhibit portraying African Americans before and after segregation. The ongoing exhibit is titled “Headties to HipHop: A Photographic Celebration of African American Dress” and is located in the Barrow Hall Gallery.
The gallery was compiled by Patricia Hunt-Hurst, department head, Katalin Medvedev, assistant professor, and José Blanco, assistant professor. On the opening day of the gallery, Hunt-Hurst and Medvedev gave a gallery talk discussing the exhibit and African American contributions to dress.
“It focuses on a different element of the history of dress, fashion, and African American history,” said Hunt-Hurst. “It shows the past and more recent history and how the African Americans have contributed.”
In the gallery talk, Dr. Hunt-Hurst spoke her studies of African American dress, and some of the photos in the exhibit are from research she did for her doctorial.
The first wall of the exhibit contains photos retrieved from the Georgia archives called the “vanishing Georgia collection.” It displays photos of women and men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The photographs show the different headwraps uses for them. The headties were tied different ways for different functions, including protection from the sun during slave work.
“ It’s function; I can’t quite say is its fashion,” said Hunt-Hurst as she walked through the gallery.
The second wall of the exhibit displays photos collected from Pandora. This portion of the gallery starts with the 1960s because that is when desegregation occurred. The first picture is of Charlayne Hunter, dressed in a conservative 1960s long coat, and Hamilton Holmes, dressed in a long trench coat, pushing their way through the media to be the first African American students at UGA.
“We tried to narrow it down and look for things in the pictures that were distinct,” said Medvedev.
The rest of the photographs on the second wall of the exhibit display fashion throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s. These include a picture of Hershel Walker and Charlayne Hunter, African American fraternities and sororities, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Bulldawg in 1996.
“We don’t really have a conclusion because the history is still being finished, researched, and studied,” said Dr. Hunt-Hurst.
The exhibit runs until March 1, and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m Monday through Friday.
This sounds like a really cool exhibit, and your story definitely does a good job creating intrigue for those who might want to attend. One thing I would say is to try to be a s consistent as you can as far as past and present goes. I know this is tricky since the exhibit is still taking place, but since the exhibit will be over by the time we print our publication, maybe put the whole thing in past tense! Overall, I think this is a good story though and good coverage of the exhibit!
ReplyDeleteLike I said in class, just try to distinguish between the one day opening event and the rest of the exhibit. Also, just try adding in some clarifying details when it comes to who and what things are. (Hershel Walker and Pandora for example.)
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