“Vanishing Appalachia: Photographs by Don Dudenbostel, Field Recordings by Tom Jester,” which has been on view at the Museum Center at 5ive Points, continues to fascinate viewers. The museum refreshed the exhibit May 15 with new photographs on aspects of Appalachian culture that are fading from existence.
The museum will also welcome back photographer Don Dudenbostel and field recorder Tom Jester for another gallery talk on June 2 at 3 p.m. Dudenbostel and Jester delighted visitors in March with tales of their adventures, and look forward to returning to share more stories about their experiences on capturing Appalachia. Refreshments in the lobby will follow the talk.
The award-winning exhibition is on loan from the Museum of East Tennessee History, located in Knoxville, Tenn. It was made possible through a grant from the Gene and Florence Monday Foundation and is sponsored locally by Cooke’s Food Store. The exhibit will be on view through June 30.
With camera and recorder in hand, Dudenbostel and Jester spent several years documenting the people, places and practices of Appalachia, capturing aspects of Appalachian life infrequently practiced but which are still associated with the region.
In the exhibition, visitors meet a pastor who preaches at a church where they “take up the serpent”; a legendary moonshiner; and a cock fighter. Other images document Mennonite communities, where life plays out much as it did in the mid-1800s, filling stations, peanut stands, grocery stores and more.
The exhibit explores the stereotypes many people have of Appalachia. “The photographs and field recordings offer rare access to people and places that many Appalachians have heard of but relatively few have chosen to participate in,” noted Adam Alfrey, the exhibition’s curator in Knoxville.
The exhibit represents three years of work by Dudenbostel and Jester, plus 40 years of work done by Dudenbostel on his own to document Appalachian images. Dudenbostel says, “In our work, we want the people of Appalachia to be seen as they want to be seen: As proud, independent survivors who are living the way they do by choice. As rural Appalachia is consumed by development and the larger society around it, the remnants of this proud old culture are being ignored by just about everybody.”
A catalog and CD of recordings featured in the exhibition is available for purchase at the Museum Center at 5ive Point’s Museum Store.
Hours at the Museum Center are Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The museum is closed Sundays, Mondays and holidays. The museum is free the first Saturday of each month. For more information, call 423-339-5745 or visit www.MuseumCenter.org.