For a body of collaborative work that is “Intelligent, challenging, compassionate, sometimes subversive… .”
Originally posted on Appalshop.com
Anne Lewis and Mimi Pickering, veteran Appalshop filmmakers and “artistic scholars,” were awarded the 2011 Cratis D. Williams and John S. Brown Service Award at the annual Appalachian Studies Association conference in Richmond, Kentucky. In presenting the award, Lora Smith pointed out the many films produced by the two women that have “served the Appalachian Studies community by providing us with outstanding visual documents, histories and ethnographies of Appalachia and [that] have been invaluable in bringing timely social justice issues facing
mountain communities to the forefront of national dialogue.” Smith also noted the “model for working in creative collaboration,” that the two women have exemplified in their work together including their work on Chemical Valley in West Virginia in 1985-1990. Between them, Lewis and Pickering have produced more than thirty-five Appalshop films. Their collaborative work continues in their current project documenting the
life and work of Kentucky civil rights leader Anne Braden.
