RICHES, the Regional Initiative for Collecting the History, Experiences and Stories, which is directed by Connie L. Lester, UCF Associate Professor of History, includes a permanent archive of the Citizen Curator Projects.
Individual projects also can be viewed by navigating the links below:
Florida Pride and Shame by UCF undergraduate student Amanda Polk offers a personal narrative of growing up in Cedar Key, Florida, near Rosewood.
“I have always felt that in order to be complete in my resolve to up lift and encourage resilience in others, I must be honest about my own roots in eliminationism. I not only have ancestors that proudly served in the Confederate army, but my family also lived in very close proximity to Rosewood during the time of the massacre in 1923. If they did not participate in this atrocity, they certainly knew people who did.”
Black in White by UCF undergraduate student Kimari Jackson
“African American students who attend predominately white institutions (PWIs) move in silence and go unseen because we do not want to make those of the opposite race uncomfortable. To demonstrate these modern day signs of elimination and resilience, I will do a series of photographs of black students at the University of Central Florida as they recount their experiences as African Americans in this country.”
Literature for the Resistance by UCF undergraduate student Jaclyn Crawford
“I would like to curate a collection of books that deal with various topics that encourage empathy in the reader through highlighting the effects of eliminationism and discrimination. The collection will also feature books that promote the empowerment of the disenfranchised and ideas to create positive change, highlighting the theme of resilience. I will curate this collection through the social media app Instagram, and I will feature a new book each Monday, a new comic book every other Wednesday, and a new children’s book every other Friday. My vision for this project is to create a page that people can look to for literature suggestions that contribute to making the world a kinder, more understanding, more positively empowered place.”
Central Florida Pulse: The Tragedy of Place and the Power of Activism by UCF Ph.D. students Mia Tangor, Carys O’Neill and Savannah Bitto
“A cabinet of curiosities has traditionally represented a collection of items brought together thematically yet typically without distinct categorical boundaries. Historically speaking, they were also utilized for educational entertainment, drawing on the curiosities of their viewers to inform and challenge. Our digital cabinet serves a similar function within the larger exhibit. This collection of images plays on themes of eliminationism and the permeation of violence into daily life.”
A Cultural Poultice by UCF Ph.D. students Abigail Padfield, Debra Fuqua, Kathryn Girvan, and Christopher Foley.
“As an attempt to understand our relationship to this event as a collective our group employed Gregory Ulmer’s concept of the popcycle as a curatorial aid and heuristic, each of us gathering images that represent our relationship to one of the dominant discourses of our lives: Family, Education, Career or Discipline, and Entertainment.”
These projects were created by students enrolled in the School of Visual Arts and Design Art and Art History programs and the Texts and Technology Ph.D. program.
