The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts will present a free, one-night screening of “If You Build It” at 7 p.m. Friday, May 5, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.
“If You Build It” follows designer-activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller to rural Bertie County, the poorest in North Carolina, where they work with local high school students to help transform both their community and their lives.
Living on credit and grant money and fighting a change-resistant school board, Pilloton and Miller lead their students through a year-long, full-scale design-and-build project that does much more than just teach basic construction skills: it shows 10 teenagers the power of design-thinking to reinvent not just their town, but their own sense of what’s possible, according to information at ifyoubuilditmovie.com.
Directed by Patrick Creadon and produced by Christine O’Malley and Neal Baer, “If You Build It” offers a “compelling and hopeful vision for a new kind of classroom in which students learn the tools to design their own futures.”
This screening is part of the School of Art’s monthly Friday Film Series and is sponsored in part by William Arscott, Nacogdoches Film Festival, Karon Gillespie, Mike Mollot, David Kulhavy, Brad Maule, John and Kristen Heath, Galleria Z, Jill Carrington, Jean Stephens, Jim and Mary Neal, Richard Orton, Main Street Nacogdoches and Nacogdoches Junior Forum.
The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.
