The Wallace House Interpretation Group discussed “Expanding the Boundaries of Plantation Interpretation” on June 11 from 1-2:30 at the Shelby County Historical Society, 1854 N Main St, Columbiana, AL 35051. Panelists were Derryn Moten, Alabama State University; Shari Williams, The Ridge Macon County ArchaeologyProject; and Elijah Gaddis, Auburn University.

This is the second of three panel discussions with the Wallace House Interpretation Group. Funding is provided by the Alabama Humanities Alliance.

Elizabeth Webb began her artist residency by screening her film and speaking at the Birmingham Museum of Art on May 21. She then visited the Datcher History House and engaged with a number of Wallace descendants as she begins to shape the work she will present in 2023 at the Wallace House.

Vincent Middle School 6th grade student poets explored the Wallace House and presented their poems to family and friends on May 19, 2022. They had participated in the Land as Persona: Many Paths to the Present curriculum created by the Alabama Writers’ Forum and Klein Arts & Culture. They wrote about Anderson Wallace, who had been enslaved at the House, the Creek Indians who lost their land, and the House itself, along with poems about themselves.

Joe McGill, Executive Director of the Slave Dwelling Project visited the Wallace House on April 2-3, 2022. He participated in the panel discussion on how to interpret slavery in former plantations. He then held a small fireside discussion for people who were going to sleep overnight in the Wallace House.

In January 2020, Klein Arts & Culture hosted the showcase event of the Alabama Dance Festival: the world premiere of Migratuse Ataraxia, a site-specific dance performance researched, choreographed, and performed by The Wideman-Davis Dance Company. Over 270 young dancers and the public experienced the performance, which memorializes the lives of enslaved individuals by shifting the rules of representation in antebellum domestic spaces.

Klein Arts & Culture hosted homecomings in 2018 and 2019, each attended by about 40 people whose ancestors were connected to Klein during the antebellum period. Each homecoming began at the cemetery with prayers, the singing of Amazing Grace, a reading of the names of those buried in the Wallace cemeteries, and a ceremony honoring the enslaved persons who lay in unmarked graves. The group then adjourned to the house for a meal and facilitated discussion led by T. Marie King. Peter Datcher brought displays from his history house for viewing. Together, we are creating a new shared narrative in this place in which our ancestors lived