Local photographer
Wing Young Huie, who is well known for his public art installations that explore everyday life in the city, is trying to line up funding for a new project, called, “We Are the Other."
It centers on strangers who cross paths within the four-neighborhood area surrounding his gallery, The Third Place, at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. He also lives in the neighborhood.
“The Other” refers to people who “know each other slightly, but for whatever reason or perceived difference there is a barrier in getting to know them well,” he states in project materials.
“We Are the Other” builds on “
The University Avenue Project,” which also forged connections between near-strangers, he says.
As a part of the recent project, which turned the St. Paul avenue into a six-mile public gallery, Huie used a series of questions to prompt conversations between residents.
He asked students in a school, for example, to go outside of their social circle, and to pose questions to one another such as, "What's your favorite word?" or "How do you think others see you?"
He documented them in black-and-white photos that feature their chalkboard scribbles.
Similarly, for his current project,Huie is bringing random people together, either on the street or at a business or a community organization, with the chalkboard.
The photographer will also host related workshops to encourage others to do the same.
Eventually, the project, which will incorporate photos from the workshops, will take the form of a “mobile community art center,” changing locations every week or so.
Altogether, it advances the idea behind The Third Place, which is also a sociological term that describes informal places where people congregate outside of home and work.
“Making connections, getting outside of our bubble, is where the idea of 'The Other' came from,” he says.
“In the times we live in, everyone wants to be connected but it’s so difficult to be connected. This is an era that’s made face-to-face interaction difficult.”
Source: Wing Young Huie
Writer: Anna Pratt