“Walking Dualities,” by Kori Price, is on display at the historic Third Street Box Office, a separate entrance for African Americans around the side of the Main Street theater. The opening coincides with the 60th anniversary of the signing of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a Paramount Theater release. The temporary exhibit will be on display until July 23.

“In the installation “Walking Dualities,” Black people from our present become apparitions representing Black folks from our country’s not-so-distant segregated past,” according to an exhibition statement from Price, founder Kori Price Photography. “These apparitions are en route to The Paramount Theater’s Third Street Box Office. Each apparition is captured in a moment of their time and shown converged all together to merge their past with our present.”

A mother and daughter walk up to purchase a ticket, sharing the same space with a couple who are there to do the same.

“Each photograph in the installation compresses time into a singularity where we can exist in unison with these apparitions from the past and those unseen and unknown who will come after us,” Price stated. “We walk in dualities of space and dualities of time. We are a product of history, a preamble of what comes next. Our present carves a path between the past and the future.”

A 2010 graduate of Eastern View High School who spent her first two years at Culpeper County High School, Price is a multi-disciplinary artist and photographer based in Charlottesville. She holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech and seeks to maintain a balance between her technical and creative interests with her work, according to a biography from the theater.

Price is a founding member and president of the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective, a past resident artist at New City Arts Initiative as well as a writer-in-residence at McGuffey Arts Center. Her work has been exhibited at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, Studio IX, McGuffey Arts Center and Second Street Gallery, according to the biography.

Asked how being from Culpeper has influenced her art, Price said she picked up her first digital camera as a student in the Pearl Sample Elementary after-school art program.

“It was a big clunky camera that used a floppy disk for storing the images, but I thought it was one of the coolest things ever,” she said.

“It was wild that you could take a picture in the computer lab and then view it on screen moments later. I kept up my interest in photography once the technology became smaller and my dad purchased a point-and-shoot camera for us to use during family gatherings and trips.”

Her brand new installation consists of four large banners printed with photographs depicting people in motion as if they are walking to and up to the former Coloreds box office, she said.

“Walking Dualities” is also a nod to W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness and a reminder that the double standard of the American declaration that “all men are created equal” has not yet been actualized, Price said in the exhibition statement.

“While the Civil Rights Act and continued activism have created significant change for Black people in our society, the generation-spanning wounds of segregation can still be felt today. Through something as quiet as unconscious bias or as vocal as white supremacy, the legacy of segregation and the Jim Crow South continues to affect current systemic and social issues. As our society continues on its path toward equity, it’s important for us to understand how both the whole picture and the nuances of the past have informed and led to our present. We must not only interact with the facts of the past, but we must stop to feel and empathize,” she stated.

“As you walk alongside these apparitions from the past, I invite you to envision what it would mean to use this alternative box office, this alternative entrance. What it would mean to have structures and signage put in place to keep you out of sight, to live a life where you are an invisible part of society,” Price said.

Two other exhibits will be featured this summer at the Third Street Box Office—”Shadows of the Past” by Tobiah Mundt, from July 30-Aug. 20, and “Ascending Light” by Nick Brinen, from Aug. 27-Sept. 17.

Paramount Theater CEO Julie Montross said in a statement they are thrilled to share the historic site for a project that invites area artists to present their voice, talent and perspective with the entire community and beyond.

Mundt is a self-taught fiber artist born and raised in Houston, Texas, and co-owner and creative director of The Hive, an arts and crafts bar in Charlottesville. Brinen is a licensed and registered architect in Virginia, Texas and New York, a founding partner of Studio Figure and a professor of architecture at James Madison University.

“We were delighted at the response we received from our open call, and each of the proposals were thought-provoking and inspiring,” Montross said. “The review panel was immensely impressed by the creativity, thoughtfulness and points of view of Kori, Tobiah and Nick around The Paramount, the Third Street Box Office and the history of segregation and civil rights. We encourage as many people as possible to visit these exhibitions over the summer and hope that they inspire dialogue and meaningful reflections.”

The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville first opened in 1931, bringing a grand movie palace to a small college town of 15,000 residents during a rising time in the early history of motion pictures, according to the theater release.

It opened as a segregated building that required Black patrons to use a separate entrance on Third Street. Only balcony seating was available to Black patrons. Access to concessions and restrooms was separate from white patrons who entered the building with greater ease and comfort from Main Street, according to the release.