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The importance of folk art as “collective memory" will be the subject of a talk by Kristin Congdon, professor of film and philosophy and director of the Cultural Heritage Alliance at the University of Central Florida, on Tuesday, February 19, at the University of Memphis. Congdon's talk will begin at 7 p.m. in the Meeman Journalism Building Auditorium.

Kristin Congdon

Congdon is also juror for the 3rd Annual Art Education Exhibition that opens Friday, February 22, at the U of M's Jones Hall Gallery and runs through March 14.

An opening reception for the exhibition will be held in the lobby of the Gallery on February 22 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. All the events are free and open to the public.

Congdon has taught art in a variety of settings, including public schools, correctional sites, treatment facilities, museums, and universities. She has a Ph.D. in art education from the University of Oregon and has published extensively on the study of folk arts, visual cultural, feminist criticism, and community arts.

In 2006, the University Press of Mississippi published Congdon's Just Above Water: Florida Folk Art, which she wrote with Florida state folklorist Tina Bucuvalas. Her 2001 publication Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales (University Press of Mississippi) won the Carolyn Washbon Award for best popular book about Florida history and the Dorothy Howard Prize from the Folklore and Education Section of the American Folklore Society. Congdon is currently working on a two-volume book that focuses on folk artists in the United States.

She is a two-time recipient of the Manual Barkan Memorial Award for scholarship from the National Art Education Association and in 1998 received the Ziegfeld Award from the United States Society for Education Through Art for international work in the arts.

For the past four years Congdon has been working on a Florida Humanities Council project that places Florida folk artists and their work on the Web at www.folkvine.org.

She is also working on a similar project for Chinese folk art.