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 In July of 1997, photographers Tom Rankin, then associate professor of Art and Southern Studies, and Dan Sherman, then graduate student and instructor in Art, both at the University, began a project with the Tutwiler Community Education Center in the Mississippi Delta. Rankin and Sherman journeyed to Tutwiler to work with 23 young people ages 12 through 17, challenging them to go into their community and take pictures of what they saw. Through images of the common to the extraordinary, they captured the heart of their hometown on film. Rankin and Sherman then developed photographs with the youngsters, encouraging them to continue their new craft. In May of 1997, Aleda Shirley, a poet who was then teaching at the University, joined the project team. She encouraged the young photographers to write about the images in the photographs as well as images that filled their imaginations. These poems and the photographic images appear in the publication Seeing Our World: Photography and Poetry by the Children of Tutwiler. The resulting artwork, a reflection of the photographers themselves and of the people and places they encounter daily, was on display at the Barnard Observatory Gallery throughout December 1998. Many of the young photographers were present for a reception in their honor and for a program during which they heard words of encouragement from Aleda Shirley; Charles Wilson, director of the Center; Dan Sherman, now instructor of Art and photographic specialist for the Southern Media Archive; Janice W. Murray, chair of the Department of Art; and Sister Maureen Delaney, director of the Tutwiler Community Education Center and director of the project. A grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission and donations to the Tutwiler Community Education Center funded the initial project. Sister Delaney and Dan Sherman are continuing the project and welcome donations of funds or materials to support the work. To make donations or to order a copy of Seeing Our World: Photography and Poetry by the Children of Tutwiler ($7 each), write the Tutwiler Community Education Center, P.O. Box 448, Tutwiler, MS 38963, or call 601-345-8393.    
Top Left, L-R: Y'esha Williams and Courtney Berryhill. Bottom Left, the participants of the photography project on the steps of Barnard Observatory.
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