Meeting Tonight: Two South Carolina African American Camp Meetings

Begun in 2017 as one photographer’s visual reflections on faith, the natural world, and the rich legacies of the Methodist camp meeting tradition in South Carolina, Meeting Tonight: Two South Carolina African American Camp Meetings is an ongoing inquiry and meditation on the spiritual and material experience of early and late African American Methodism in the sacred outdoors.

Holly Lynton's photographs of camp meetings featured in this exhibition are accompanied by three homiletical meditations by Maurice Wallace. In his homilies, the speculative insights of Black Studies meet Black religious practice in inspired, deep-thinking communion. Together, image and text convey an emotional history of the African American Methodist camp meeting in South Carolina and materialize a prayer for its undefined future.

Holly Lynton is an award-winning fine arts photographer based in Massachusetts. Maurice Wallace is a Rutgers professor who has served two North Carolina African American congregations as lead minister.

This exhibition is a collaboration between Holly Lynton, Maurice Wallace, and the Gospel Materialities Working Group in the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers.