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How did you hear <br />about our grant <br />program? <br />Social media <br />Did you attend or <br />watch the Artist <br />Project Grant <br />Training Session? <br />No <br />PROJECT/PROGRAM <br />INFORMATION <br />Tell us about your project or program <br />Title of Grant Project Looking Back Through the Trees: An Infrared Exploration of Chapel Hill and <br />Carrboro First Integrated Public School Community <br />Grant Amount <br />Requested <br />3,000 <br />Project Start Date <br />(no earlier than July <br />1, 2025) <br />August 1, 2025 <br />Project End Date (no <br />later than June 30, <br />2026) <br />May 30, 2025 <br />Project/Program <br />Summary <br />This photographic project revisits the neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and <br />Carrboro where I was raised and where I attended the town’s first <br />integrated public school. Through the innovative use of infrared film, I aim <br />to capture the landscapes, architecture, and enduring natural elements that <br />remain from that pivotal period in our local civil rights history. These images <br />will be printed, framed, and exhibited to engage the public in dialogue <br />around memory, belonging, and place. Through interviews, the project will <br />explore the intertwined histories of Chapel Hill and Carrboro’s <br />neighborhoods during the 1960s and 1970s—the era of public school <br />integration—through the lens of my personal story and that of my childhood <br />friends. By returning to these physical locations and documenting them with <br />black-and-white and infrared photography, I will create a visual archive that <br />is both artistic and historical. The use of infrared imagery lends a spectral, <br />otherworldly quality that evokes memory, change, and unseen histories. <br />Infrared photography will be employed to render familiar Southern <br />landscapes in a surreal, evocative manner. Trees—symbolic of time, <br />growth, and rootedness—will serve as compositional and conceptual <br />anchors in these images. The project blends documentary photography with <br />experimental visual art to offer viewers a new way of seeing the past <br />through the living landscape. <br />Docusign Envelope ID: 9776B085-AF9A-4F4A-A5BE-875D28A7AA1D