"Looking Back" | Barbara Tyroler Art Exhibit
Date: Fri, Oct 9, 2026
Time: 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Venue: Robert & Pearl Seymour Center, Chapel Hill
Price: Free
Category: Arts
"A powerful new multimedia art exhibition looking at the intersections of local civil rights history, visual storytelling and community identity will open late next month. “Looking Back: Where Memory Takes Root,” a solo photography exhibition by acclaimed local artist Barbara Tyroler, runs from Aug. 29-Oct. 3 at the Robert and Pearl Seymour Center in Chapel Hill." Tyroler partnered with the Marion Cheek Jackson Center to embed interactive oral history QR codes directly into the gallery layout, bringing the history to life. Visitors can scan the codes to listen to the lived experiences and memories of historic Northside neighborhood residents. Growing up in Chapel Hill during the first years of public school desegregation, Tyroler returned decades later to capture luminous, hauntingly beautiful infrared photographs of both historically Black and historically white neighborhoods, schools, parks and familiar streets. The resulting images act as a visual bridge, examining how physical environments absorb collective community memory and shape the evolution of local neighborhoods.
