Award-winning exhibit about the South to premiere at WFU Oct. 11

The Hanes Gallery exhibit features photographer Kendall Messick’s black-and-white photographs accompanied by a soundtrack of original music composed for the project by blues artist John Hammond. Scenes from the town and its people will be interspersed with collages of photographs, old newspaper clippings and Messick’s handwritten notes. The film adaptation of the exhibit, recently named best documentary at the Cinevue Film Festival in Florida, will also be shown.

The project that started out of a friendship between two Wake Forest students —the artist, Messick, and Brenda Parker-Hunt, a Corapeake native — has blossomed into a tribute that is garnering interest from public television stations, museums and galleries across the country. A writer at the Chicago Tribune called it one of the best portraits of American small town life he had seen in years.

“This is really a metaphor for the entire South,” says Messick.

Note to Editors: Images from “Corapeake” are available upon request. To arrange an interview with Messick, contact Sarah Mansell. For the full release on the Hanes Gallery’s October exhibits, visit the News Service Web site, www.wfu.edu/wfunews