The Old South and the New South on exhibit

1958 Chevrolet junk truck

By Sharon White

The Center for the Study of Southern Culture is hosting the David Zurick collection at the Gammill Gallery in the Barnard Observatory Lecture Hall at the University of Mississippi until Oct. 14.

The exhibit, "Southern Crossings: Where Geography and Photography Meet," is a collection of black and white images of the Old South and the New South representing geographical areas of its culture and lifestyle.

One exhibit from the Old South is an abandoned 1958 Chevrolet truck disintegrating from the lack of use and harsh weather, and parked in a field surrounded by an overgrowth of bushes, grass, and weeds. Representing the New South are the franchises; Checkers, Winn-Dixie supermarket, and Days Inn.

In each image, the artist utilizes angles, lines, and shadows wrapped around colors of black, white, and gray. The 23 images are the brain child of geographer, writer, and photographer David Zurick, professor at the University of Kentucky.

Zurick has traveled through the winter months and county roads of the South, since 1996, permitting various landscapes to dictate what the South was all about through the lens of a vintage view camera.

"The sheet film provided me with excellent negatives," Zurick wrote in his 2010 book "Southern Crossings Where Geography and Photography Meet."

http://www.eku.edu/news/professors-new-book-examines-dichotomy-american-south

David Wharton, assistant professor of Southern Studies and director of Documentary Projects at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, read the book and invited Zurick to Ole Miss for an exhibition.
"The exhibit began in August before the fall semester, and David was here in September and spoke to several of my classes," Wharton said. "The reception from the students was great."

Zurick captures the Old South and the New South with a collection of rivers, woodlands, gardens, antebellum homes, and farm life combined with modern buildings, highways, and cities, bringing geography and photography together and a new appreciation for the South.