Memories of the 15th Ward will be featured in the Sojourner Storytelling Conference and a photography exhibition. Both events will be held in the Shaffer Art Building on Syracuse University’s main campus.
A photography exhibition, entitled 15th Ward: Memories of a Syracuse Neighborhood Transformed, will be presented Feb. 23 to 27 in the rotunda of the Shaffer Art Building at Syracuse University.
A public reception will be held at 6 p.m . Feb. 26 with the Sojourner Storytelling Conference following in Shemin Auditorium (in the Shaffer Art Building) at 7 p.m. Free parking will be available for attendees at Booth Parking Garage and, for the disabled and elderly, at the Quad Four parking area.
The exhibition traces the historical development of the neighborhood from the early 20th century, through the urban renewal period of the 1960s and concludes with a look at the neighborhood as it is found today. On view will be photographs that document the early days of the district as it evolved into a center for Jewish life in Syracuse. As the area progressed from those early days it gradually became a destination for African Americans moving north in search of a better life. The photographs also show the neighborhood during the urban renewal period and the construction of interstate 81.
The annual Sojourner Storytelling Conference is in its 11th year. The event will feature two live storytellers, mixed-media presentations about the Ward, and a 30-minute student-produced documentary about the neighborhood.
The two storytellers are Francis Parks and Sandy Sternlicht. Parks, the founder of the Sojourner Storytelling Conference, is a renowned storyteller who recently retired after 25 years of service to the Syracuse University community including as director of Students Offering Service and of African American Programs in Hendricks Chapel.
Sternlicht is a professor in the English Department and was recently appointed Speaker in the Humanities by the New York Council for the Humanities. He is also author of several books including his most recent, The Tenement Saga: The Lower East Side and Early Jewish American Writers.
The exhibition consists of nearly 60 photographs drawn from the collections of the Judaic Heritage Center, the Onondaga Historical Association, the Coulter Library at Onondaga Community College and Beauchamp Library, as well as former and current residents of this part of the city. Included in the exhibit are the photographs of Aldo Tambellini and Marjory Wilkins. The exhibition was organized, researched, designed, and constructed by the students of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Syracuse University.
Both events received funding from Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life and were developed in conjunction with Say Yes to Education, Hendricks Chapel, the department of African American Studies and Syracuse University’s Public Memory Project. SUs Public Memory Project is an interdisciplinary collective centered in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies. Over the past eight years, the Public Memory Project has organized several conferences, guest speakers and public events focused on the ways that the past continues to inform our orientation toward the present.
The 15th Ward project has also included numerous community organizations and individuals including: the Judaic Heritage Center, Southwest Community Center, Temple Society of Concord and Grace Episcopal Church.
