Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta - Hardcover

Rankin, Tom

9780878056408: Sacred Space: Photographs from the Mississippi Delta

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0878056408 ISBN 13: 9780878056408

Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi, 1993

Tom Rankin's black-and-white photographs explore the heartfelt religious expressions of African-Americans in the Mississippi Delta. No single institution in this region has had a more profound cultural impact than the countless African-American churches that accent the landscape.
Landmarks to some, places of spiritual refuge to others, "home church" to devoted members, these sacred spaces have been planned, built, decorated, and maintained by local communities. They provide a sustaining force in both symbol and practice.
The forty duotone plates in this book include landscapes with churches, church interiors, cemeteries, baptismal lakes and bayous, and black congregations. This is an elegant testimony to the persistence, creativity, and communal symbolism of the church and its affiliated expressions.
In the accompanying text Rankin draws upon his interviews with preachers and church members and upon documentary recordings of church services. In the introductory essay Charles Reagan Wilson examines the symbolic meanings of sacred space and discusses the historical and cultural importance of the African-American church in the Delta.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Tom Rankin is an associate professor of art and southern studies at the University of Mississippi.

From Booklist:

This sparkling, little gem of fine photography and deeply sympathetic writing illuminates the world of the African American "home-church" in the rural Delta region of Mississippi. Rankin went to the churches as an outsider, and his first pictures concentrated on homemade tombstones and architecture. Clearly, his great sensitivity won the confidence of church members, however, which enabled him to take the subsequent, moving photographs of baptisms and portraits of pastors. Rankin is not the first outsider with such a project (Doris Ullman in the 1920s and 1930s comes to mind, and others emulated her), and his work is not without the faint whiff of patronizing interest ("College professor photographs local color"), yet the project as a whole has great integrity and respects the integrity of its subjects. Exquisite reproduction of the 48 black-and-white images and a well-written introduction are supporting strengths. A modest but very real contribution to the visual record of the African American South. Gretchen Garner

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.