By Ann Nichols
annsnichols@aol.com
Caroline Allison, a professor in the art department at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., challenges herself to discover the unexpected.
Through her photographs, on display in Sewanee’s University Art Gallery, she says she “pushes past the burden of photographic history.” Her exhibit, “A Common Place,” depicts various locations throughout Tennessee such as the jury box from the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, the Kingston Fossil Plant, Twitty City and the Volcano Room at Cumberland Caverns. Each of these sites has been photographed numerous times and is imbued with either “a cultural or an historic aura.”
For Ms. Allison, the challenge was to find the unseen element in otherwise familiar scenes — making them new for the viewer.