The Deep South Project is a collaboration between Will Taylor (Professor/Assistant Dean/Director of Visual Arts) at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Allison Gilbert (Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Faculty affiliate, Wilson Center for Science and Justice) at Duke University. 

Will is a painter and printmaker whose work explores systems of belief, the nature of the archetype, and spiritualism. Allison's research centers on the intersections of mental illness, addiction, and incarceration, often involving people and places deeply affected by isolation and deprivation.

Their work together began with a shared love of the printed image. 

The Deep South Project was funded with a Faculty Leadership grant from the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and a University of North Carolina School of the Arts Faculty Development Grant in Spring, 2023. 

What started as a 2,000-mile, 13-day, 6-state photography project evolved into a continuing collaboration of photography, printmaking, and painting, representing themes of work made in the South and inspired by geographic and cultural influences.