Heritage Placemaking through the Arts

This research explores the intersection of arts and heritage practices in enhancing historic sites’ preservation, memory, and community vitality. It examines how arts-based initiatives engage with collective memory, address narratives of trauma, combat erasure, and foster community collaboration in co-producing heritage and creative practices.

Guiding Questions

  • How do intangible and tangible heritage practices intersect?
  • How do the arts enhance the experience, memory, and preservation of historic sites and spaces?
  • How do the arts revitalize and maintain community vitality through creative placemaking and tradition building?
  • How do the arts engage collective memories of troubled history and sites of trauma?
  • How do the arts battle erasure of threatened communities and places?
  • How do arts and heritage practices negotiate conflicting narratives and perspectives among varying communities?
  • How does heritage inform new creative practices?
  • How are communities engaged in the co-production of arts and heritage research and practice with artists and academics?

Research Projects

  • Loray Mill Musical
  • Brooklyn to Browne’s Ferry 
  • Charlotte Strings Collective
  • Lavagem Festival
  • Ring Shout Traditions
  • Equity in Memory and Memorial (E2M)
  • Mobile Studio

LEADERSHIP

Cadre Leader

Tamara Williams, Associate Professor of Dance

Affiliated Faculty

  • Nadia Anderson
  • Brian Arreola
  • Carlos Cruz
  • Sequina Dubose
  • Mira Frisch
  • Matthew Gin
  • Kim Jones
  • Emily Makas
  • Juila Robinson Moore
  • Samira ShiraDevich
  • Greg Snyder
  • Ashley Tate
  • Meg Whalen

TAHAYYUZ

Integrating the Arts into Heritage Education and Practice

Faculty: Emily Makas (Architecture), Carlos Alexis Cruz (Theatre), Samira ShiraDevich (Art&Art History), Heather Freeman (Art&Art History), Sekou Cooke (Architecture)
Partners: May Al-Ibrashy (Megawra BEC, Cairo), Ahmed Mansour (Mansour for Conservation, Cairo), Ahmed Zaazaa (10Tooba, Cairo), Eman Elbana (Helwan University, Cairo), Brook Muller (College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor), Tessa Farmer (University of Virginia, Charlottesville)