The photo exhibition, Documenting Rural America, 1988-1999, is open and will be on display throughout the remainder of the 2016-2017 academic year in the Schroeder Hall second floor atrium.

Documenting Rural America, 1988-1999 is a collaboration between Illinois State University’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the School of Art. The exhibition, curated by Department of Sociology faculty members Liv Stone and Michael Dougherty, includes selected photos from Illinois State’s Rural Documentary Collection. The works address the social realities confronting rural Americans as they work to hold together communities that are threatened by a weakening of the social fabric and the neglect of an ever more urban- and suburban-focused government and policy-making apparatus.

Started in 1988, the Rural Documentary Collection consists of more than 800 photographs created primarily by Master of Fine Arts students at Illinois State.