Raleigh Rambles

Hunt Library Hosts Amazing BMC Educational Happening

David Silver, a USF professor who studies media and urban agriculture, used NCSU’s Hunt Library and its magnificent IT and media resources to provide a unique and invaluable review of the farm at Black Mountain College, and how it invigorated the sense of community, the work ethic and the physical bodies of everyone on campus. Silver, who was featured in my last BMC post, has spent countless hours poring over the images and papers in the BMC archives at the NC Western Regional Archives in Asheville. He, with the help of numerous staff members and students at the Hunt Library, created a stunning array of images in four of the library’s presentation venues. The movement, the change of scale and David’s infectious energy all made for a highly stimulating “lecture” that transcended standard academic formats.

Black Mountain College began in the Depression in 1933 and lasted until 1956. For most of those years, farm activities, conducted primarily by students, provided substantial and sometimes crucial food for the college community. The farm also helped enact the progressive ideas of the founder, John Rice, who involved students in all decision-making processes about curriculum and campus life. During the war years, the predominately female population continued and developed the farm and also construction projects on the new Lake Eden campus. In the last years before closing, the end of the farm program led to some hungry times for the nearly destitute institution. Silver showed how the farm and the preparation of its food is a research thread that reveals issues ranging from racially progressive views to education as doing, from the empowering of female students to environmental conservation.

The trek through Hunt Library started in the lobby’s iPearl Immersion Theater and then moved to the classroom above, where we turned around to each wall as it illuminated with new images. The format fit David’s active style perfectly. The sense of landscape, the huge size of the student-built barn, the humor David found in so many images, all were enhanced by the settings.

David’s 5 year old daughter Siena leads the large crowd upstairs for the next presentation

Professor Silver was generous in his praise for all the staff and students with whom we had worked at the Hunt Library. He also was effusive (as are all BMC scholars) about Heather South, archivist at the Western Regional Archives, who below watches David present.

These columns of imagery, set in the curved wall of a large work area, formed my favorite venue. A few scattered students were around, the crowd was put at ease by the vast expanses, and people could move around and come and go as they wished. I won’t try to convey much of David’s BMC specifics. He has published much and will continue to lead us all to a better awareness of how the farm influenced the education experience at Black Mountain College.

This library really is gorgeous and mind-blowing. Its namesake visited this day, but hurried right past the BMC presentation!

All posts on BMC

my BMC page

August 4, 2014 - Posted by raleighnaturalist | Black Mountain, food | Black Mountain College