Elevating Community Stories

Guiding Questions

  • How can exhibitions, oral histories, and other documentary processes elevate and promote marginalized stories, told through community voices, to battle erasure of threatened communities and places?
  • How do migrant and diasporic communities retain and engage identity and tradition through arts practices?
  • How do diaspora communities transform, adapt, and engage tangible and intangible heritages while in transition or making homes in new places?
  • How can the arts investigate and serve as a vehicle for the heritage of diaspora and immigrant communities, particularly in the Charlotte metropolitan region?
  • How can exhibitions, oral histories, and other documentary processes engage collective memories of troubled history and sites of trauma?

Cadre Leader

Tina Shull, Associate Professor of History / Director of Public History

Research Projects

CHARLOTTE ATLAS OF CLIMATE INEQUALITY AND COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

Social Capital and Resilience to Climate Change in Environmentally and Economically Disadvantaged Communities

Faculty: Tina Shull (History), Michael Ewers (Geograph & Earth Sciences). Marek Ranis (Art & Art History),

BURYING FUTURES

Archeology of Graves to Be

Faculty: Carlos Alexis Cruz (Theatre), Sara Juengst (Anthropology), Eric Hoenes del Pinal (Anthropology), Charles Hutchinson (Africana Studies)
Partners: Nouveau Sud Circus Project (Charlotte)

CONTAINER / CONTAINED

Design Strategies for Telling African American Stories: Phil Freelon

Faculty: Emily Makas (Architecture), Greg Snyder (Architecture)
Students: Tahlya Mock (MArch / MS Heritage), Faith Tootle (BA Architecture), 25 other ARCH undergraduate and graduate students since 2019
Partners: Florida A&M University (Tallahassee), North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh), Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American History and Culture (Charlotte)

INDIGENOUS DIGITAL NARRATIVES

Arts-Anchored, Multimodal Stories of Indigenous Scholars and Community Leaders

Faculty: Jason Black (Communication Studies)

MAPPING MEMORIES IN MOSTAR

Interpreting Endangered Heritage through AR and Mobile Apps

Faculty: Emily Makas (Architecture), Ming-Chun Lee (Architecture)
Students: Mars Grubbs (MA Public History / MS Heritage)
Partners: Saeed Ahmadi Oloonabadi (CommunitAR, Charlotte), Senada Demirovic Habibija (IDEAA, Mostar)

INVSIBLE HISTORIES PROJECT

Oral Histories of Charlotte Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ Communities

Faculty: Wilfredo Flores (Writing, Rhetoric & Digital Studies)

IT HAPPENED HERE

The Legacy of Lynching in Mecklenburg County

Faculty: Emily Makas (Architecture), Marc Manack (Architecture)
Students: Tahlya Mock (MArch / MS Heritage)
Partners: Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Remembrance Project Steering Committee (Charlotte), Levine Museum of the New South (Charlotte)