Of Time, and the Town from filmmaker David Ellsworth poetically depicts twenty years of changes and constants in the built environment of Farmville, Virginia and in the rural areas surrounding it. The film’s super-8 film images bear witness to how everyday locales provide markers of the town’s social evolution. A young couple labors to renovate an abandoned 19th century school and make it their home while the town’s previously shuttered all-Black high school finds new life as a civil rights museum documenting the 1950s student strike that helped integrate the county’s schools. Children grow as one-hundred-year-old oak trees fall. Excerpts from the town’s AM radio station provide a sonic touchstone that complements the film’s evocative sound design.

The Longwood Center for the Visual Arts (LCVA) welcomes the community to an opening reception on Friday, September 6 from 5:30 – 8 pm; early entry for Friends & Partners at 5 pm. This exhibition will be on view from September 6, 2024—January 21, 2025.

About LCVA:

The Longwood Center for the Visual Arts presents a rotating program of inspiring and conversation-starting exhibitions. Admission to LCVA and its programs is—and always has been—free for all. It is located at the intersection of Main and Third Streets (129 North Main Street) in Farmville, Virginia. For additional information on these exhibitions or other programs and events, contact LCVA at 434.395.2206 or visit LCVA’s website at https://lcva.longwood.edu/.

LCVA exhibitions and programs are made possible through the generous support of: the Wells Fargo Foundation, the Walter J. Payne Foundation, Anne Carter & Walter R. Robins, Jr. Foundation, Walmart, Navona & David Hart, Century 21 @ Home, Helton House, Haley Auto Mall, Candice Jamison Dowdy ’69 & Charles H. Dowdy III + Northwestern Mutual, Hotel Weyanoke, Lisa & Tim Tharpe, Rock Foundation, Community Foundation for a Greater Richmond, Harriet Butterworth Miller ’51, Joni Beachly + Ironworks Financial, YakAttack, Peachtree House Foundation, Wilma Register Sharp ’66 & Marc B. Sharp, and Mindy & Nash Osborn + North Street Press Club.

Image/Piece Info:
Dave Ellsworth
still from Of Time, and the Town
digital projection from Super 8 film

Dimensions variable, 28:51
Courtesy of the artist