Students to research, document Alabama art collections in new Mellon-backed course

This fall a new hands-on, research-driven course will be offered in which students will work with Troy University’s art collections to research their histories, and the people, communities and cultural contexts connected to them.  Art, Memory and Cultural Documentation (ART 3343), will be taught by Mellon Fellow Will Jacks, an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Design, as part of the Mellon-funded initiative “(Re)reading Alabama’s Cultural Archives: Connecting Place to its Multitudes.”  “Rather than approaching artworks only through lectures, this experiential learning environment asks students work directly with the artwork, researching their histories and the people and communities around them,” Jacks said. “Then they will take that research and build contextual content around it through photographs, audio interviews, and video recordings with individuals and organizations that are somehow connected to and impacted by the art.” Dr. Priya Menon, the Mellon grant’s Project Lead, said the course is one of five being developed through the grant to deepen students’ understanding of the culture of Alabama. While the broader initiative spans multiple disciplines, ART 3343 focuses specifically on Alabama art through collections housed at TROY’s International Art Center. “It addresses a clear gap by foregrounding local and regional archives that have remained underexamined, while
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