The Avery Center Presents “This Far by Faith: Carolina Camp Meetings, An African-American Tradition”

The College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture will present This Far by Faith: Carolina Camp Meetings, An African-American Tradition from September 3, 2015 to January 25, 2016, in the McKinley Washington Auditorium and Cox Gallery within the Avery Center at 125 Bull Street. The exhibition’s opening reception is September 3, 2015, at 7 p.m. The event is open to the public.

Camp Welfare in Fairfield County, S.C.

This exhibition represents a 14-year journey of research, photographs, audio and video footage by Minuette Floyd, associate professor of art education in the School of Visual Art at the University of South Carolina. This black and white photography exhibit explores the history and traditions of camp meetings that take place annually in the Carolinas. Since 2001, Floyd has travelled to 7 African-American campgrounds and captured the rich tradition through photography, video, and oral interviews. Her first solo exhibition was entitled Generations: African-American Camp Meetings in South Carolina and travelled between 2001 and 2004. This is the second phase of This Far by Faith, which features 42 large black and white photographs and has been displayed at the Charlotte Museum of History in North Carolina, the Moore Methodist Center at St. Simons Island, Ga., and the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina.

Camp meeting attendees in some of their finest.

Floyd’s interest in camp meetings derived from her own childhood experiences of attending camp meetings in North Carolina. Upon returning to this tradition as an adult, she realized that research and publications on the topic were extremely limited and decided to capture the tradition for future generations. Her book, A Place to Worship: Carolina Camp Meetings, An African-American Tradition will be published through USC Press.

A graduate of Winston-Salem State University, Floyd holds a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a doctorate degree from Florida State University. She serves on the steering committee of the Arts in Basic Curriculum Project, the board of the South Carolina Alliance in Arts Education, and the education advisory committee at the Columbia Museum of Art.

RELATED: See more of Floyd’s photographs and learn more about African-American camp meetings.