Elevating Community Stories

This research investigates how exhibitions, oral histories, and arts practices can elevate marginalized voices, support the heritage of migrant and diasporic communities, and address erasure in the Charlotte metropolitan area. It focuses on the role of the arts in preserving cultural identity, adapting heritage practices, and engaging collective memories of trauma to promote resilience and community cohesion.

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?