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| BREAKING NEW GROUND
Grit and determination helped tens of thousands of African-Americans overcome discrimination in decades past to find work in Southern Illinois' once-teeming coalfields.
The exhibit, consisting of 25 large prints, opened at the African American Museum of Southern Illinois last November and is now traveling to venues across the nation. Lee Buchsbaum, a master’s student in photography, is the project’s chief architect. Other contributing photographers are Joshua Sanseri, a master’s student in art and design; Deidre Hughes, a doctoral student in history; Eric Robinson and Robert Booker, unclassified graduate students; and associate professor Daniel Overturf, who teaches documentary photography. Since spring 2002, they’ve been taking portraits of African-American coal miners and their descendants in Southern Illinois mining settlements to help capture a previously little-known piece of regional history. Funding for the ongoing project comes from the Illinois Humanities Council and the SIUC Coal Research Center. The United Mine Workers of America's District No. 12 is providing additional support. Sanseri’s photos for the project won the
Grand Prize in the university/college portfolio category of the Photographic
Imaging Education Association’s 2003 contest. Those prints will be part
of a four-continent touring show sponsored by PIEA and the Photographic
Marketing Association International.
—Paula Davenport
For more information, contact Daniel Overturf, Dept. of Cinema and Photography, at (618) 453-1487 or dvo0201@siu.edu. |
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Comments: Perspectives Webmaster
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"Working
in the Seams: An Initial Photographic View into the African-American Coal
Culture in Southern Illinois," a recent exhibit created by five SIUC graduate
students and their professor, pays homage to these oft-overlooked laborers
of color.