Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Celebrating community at Abbey Court

Posted on April 21, 2011April 21, 2011 by Staff

PHOTO BY WILL BRYANT. Children of Abbey Court Apartments express their artistic creativity during the Water Festival on Sunday. The festival, which celebrates the Burmese New Year, brought the community together through a combination of water balloons, art, music and good food.

By Will Bryant
Staff Writer

In the early-afternoon hours of Sunday, April 17, a fight broke out at Abbey Court Condominiums. There were no cries of anger, nor were there any punches thrown. The fight took place with smiling faces, soaked clothes and water guns amid the rhythmic sounds of salsa music echoing off the buildings of a changing community.

Abbey Court Condominiums was celebrating Thingyan, the Burmese New Year Water Festival, and more than 100 people came out to take part in a massive water fight.

The festival, hosted by the Human Rights Center of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, was held to honor to the growing number of Burmese residents living in the area.

“The idea is to acknowledge all these people’s culture, especially here in Abbey Court,” said Rafael Gallegos, the associate director of Human Rights Center. Gallegos said that as many as 25 Burmese families are living in Abbey Court and that the festival was held to help the Burmese feel welcome, as well as bring the community together.

“Here, there are no games for kids and there are no areas for kids to play in,” Gallegos said. “So if you want to develop a sense of community, you have to do something like this.”

The afternoon was filled with the screams of happy children soaking one another with water guns and water balloons and the smell of tamales being served to all in attendance. Horseback rides in the Abbey Court quad were offered for the kids.

Off to the side of the splashing children, a few local artists brought another dynamic to the celebration that allowed residents to take a piece of the festival home with them.

Eleanor Blake, Lincoln Hancock and Neill Prewitt operated a fantasy photo booth for the Abbey Court residents, allowing them to have their pictures taken with a variety of digital backgrounds that included dazzling fireworks, an ancient pagoda and colorful hearts.

Blake said the photo booth gave residents the opportunity to have their pictures taken in a place that exists only in their imaginations, far away from the dull buildings of Abbey Court.

“We’re starting to explore dreams and ideas of people,” she said. “But mainly we wanted to take pictures this time and have something immediately to give to the people.”

Blake is a member of the team of artists that was selected by the Town of Chapel Hill Public Arts Office and the Public Arts Commission to work on the Into the Streets: Community Arts Engagement Project. The commission’s goal is to allow artists to expose residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro to the positive experiences going on in the Abbey Court community.

The project will culminate in an art exhibition at 523 E. Franklin St. that is scheduled to run June 10 to July 31.

“The idea, eventually, is that the larger community can learn about people who live here,” said Blake, “so that [the community] can learn about who they really are.”

And as residents of Abbey Court left the water festival with photos in hand, they were able to get a clearer picture of their community as well.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme