{"id":9989,"date":"2019-11-21T22:42:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T22:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=9989"},"modified":"2022-02-22T17:59:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:59:15","slug":"face-value-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2019\/11\/21\/face-value-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Face value"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dakota and Ojibwe.
\nNorwegian and Irish.
\nSomali and Ethiopian.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On and around the land that today houses Augsburg University\u2019s Minneapolis campus, they celebrated births and mourned deaths. They spoke languages of love and laughter, stress and sorrow. They built families, businesses, and dreams.<\/p>\n

They were here and many are gone, at once everywhere and nowhere because in the blistering pace and abundant distractions of the human ecosystem we all inhabit, it\u2019s natural that we forget who came before us.<\/p>\n

But what if\u2014even for a moment\u2014we turned our attention to who we were and who we are right now? To who worships next to us, or walks by us in the grocery, or shares an apartment wall?<\/p>\n

\u201cOn This Spot\u201d and \u201cEach, Together,\u201d bring into focus the history of the campus and the surrounding neighborhood, and the people who are the Augsburg of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What would we discover if we intentionally took notice of who we are and where we\u2019ve come from?<\/p>\n

This idea is at the core of new art and historical exhibits that cover collectively four city blocks on 12 of Augsburg\u2019s building facades and 37 window panes around campus. As part of Augsburg\u2019s sesquicentennial celebration, artists and designers at the university wanted to give the community a chance to reflect on their history and their people. So the works, dubbed respectively \u201cOn This Spot\u201d and \u201cEach, Together,\u201d bring into focus the history of the campus and the surrounding neighborhood, and the people who are the Augsburg of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u2018Humans at the center\u2019<\/h3>\n

\u201cEach, Together,\u201d the larger of the two projects, is a Group Action of the international \u201cInside Out: The People\u2019s Art Project\u201d initiative that launched in 2011 after a French street artist, known only as JR, won that year\u2019s TED Prize. First awarded in 2005, the TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Prize has become synonymous with visionary thinking meant to spark change throughout the world. Winners of the award\u2014including educators, artists, chefs, journalists, and even former President Bill Clinton\u2014have used the $1 million prize to fuel specific community projects, like healthy food initiatives and educational innovations. The winning projects all have one thing in common: They are designed to make people engage in their communities.<\/p>\n

\"student<\/a>In the case of artist JR\u2019s project, his vision was to create works that \u201cshine a light on the unsung and give everyone the dignity they deserve.\u201d And he hoped that beyond his capacity as one artist, people around the world would join in the celebration of others. To date, more than 260,000 people in 129 countries have participated in different versions of the project featuring faces displayed on billboards, buildings, sidewalks, and in digital collections. Augsburg is one of the latest communities to answer the call.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw that invitation, that there was a related, common ethos to what we have here at Augsburg, and that the project was similar to public works we\u2019ve done here,\u201d said Christopher Houltberg<\/strong><\/a>, Augsburg associate professor of art and design. \u201cIt\u2019s really about putting humans at the center.\u201d<\/p>\n

So a team that included a curator, nine photographers, and three designers\u2014Houltberg, Maggie Royce \u201915<\/strong>, and Indra Ramassamy \u201918<\/strong>\u2014worked for several months between Fall 2018 and Summer 2019. The photographers attended between 15 and 20 campus events, all working to capture as many faces as possible to best tell the Augsburg story.<\/p>\n

\"student<\/a>\u201cThe way we went about it was really organic,\u201d Houltberg said. \u201cWe started going to events around campus in Fall 2018 and then in the springtime, trying to get to as many different ones as possible. There\u2019s a really big holiday event called Advent Vespers, and a lot of alumni come to that.\u201d All told, the group took more than 900 photos and gathered about 300 additional images of historic Auggies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very democratic; everyone is given the same amount of space,\u201d Houltberg said. \u201cFrom our president, Paul Pribbenow<\/strong>, to people who work on our janitorial staff, to our students, to our former mayor, R.T. Rybak<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we were defining the parameters [of the \u2018Each, Together\u2019 project] it was a fun surprise for us to see who self-identified as part of Augsburg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bigger dose of Augsburg<\/h3>\n

R.T. Rybak, current president of the Minneapolis Foundation, was the mayor of Minneapolis from 2002 to 2014. He said it would be impossible to think of the growth and development of the city without considering the role Augsburg has played in that history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve conservatively said 1,000 times in public speeches that the neighborhood where Augsburg is, is our Ellis Island. One wave after the other washes in and the next wave builds on top, and it\u2019s something that no one wave could have created in isolation,\u201d Rybak said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s most certainly the story of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood that surrounds Augsburg and the story of Minneapolis as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201c… I often think we just need a bigger dose of Augsburg. We need to realize that offering that ladder of opportunity to someone else makes all of us able to climb higher. We are better together.<\/p>\n

\u2014R.T. Rybak, former Minneapolis mayor<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cAugsburg is a shining example of the very best parts of Minneapolis\u2019 history. The university represents opening doors to people with strange names like Johnson or Anderson or Rybak, and keeping those doors open for people with names that come from Africa, Asia, and places across the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I get down about what\u2019s fracturing our deeply divided country and world today, I often think we just need a bigger dose of Augsburg. We need to realize that offering that ladder of opportunity to someone else makes all of us able to climb higher. We are better together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houltberg said the \u201ctogether\u201d ideal is at the heart of the exhibit. \u201cAs individuals we are showing up, and collectively we can do something greater than what we can do on our own,\u201d he said. \u201cI loved seeing the portraits blocked together, seeing people stop and take selfies. There are people who say, \u2018I recognize who that is!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Forward facing, historic reflections<\/h3>\n

Kristin Anderson<\/strong><\/a>, a co-creator of these projects as well as a professor of art history and Augsburg archivist, said she\u2019s only heard good things about the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen emails and tweets\u2014sometimes emotional\u2014with people responding to the wall as a whole, as well as to their individual images,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

The community is responding to the historical revisit that \u201cOn This Spot\u201d installations provide, too, she said.<\/p>\n

That exhibit features enormous panels that share Augsburg moments that photographers captured decades ago. The campus life of yesteryear includes images of young bobby soxer women from the 1940s in saddle shoes and flowing skirts in contrast with men wearing formal suits while tramping across a snow-covered campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a fun way to bring some old photographs to life and to show how the campus is layered on the site. Those \u2018lost\u2019 buildings displayed on the walls of the current buildings help to connect us to our past, reminding us of the imagination and commitment of our predecessors,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

The two exhibits are being admired by community members who see the campus regularly and by those who keep up with Augsburg from a distance.<\/p>\n

Killa (Martinez Aleman) Marti \u201908<\/strong> came to Augsburg from her home in Honduras. Marti said she brought her own values with her when she enrolled, \u201cbut Augsburg put them to work. The Auggie community showed me that I wasn\u2019t crazy to want a career with meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose \u2018lost\u2019 buildings displayed on the walls of the current buildings help to connect us to our past, reminding us of the imagination and commitment of our predecessors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Kristin Anderson, university archivist<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Hagfors<\/a>For Marti, \u201cEach, Together\u201d perfectly sums up her experience at Augsburg.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy career is an intersection of what I love to do with the opportunity to serve,\u201d said Marti, an attorney in Atlanta. \u201cTo think critically, to be socially and community-minded\u2014all of the things I exercise in my life were supported and further developed at Augsburg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houltberg said it\u2019s difficult not to consider the greater impact that art, especially a work like \u201cEach, Together,\u201d has.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a group of artists, designers, and photographers come together to make something this beautiful and to see it up and fully functioning is pretty great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has created a tangible thread between all of us, which transcends 150 years and all our history,\u201d said Ramassamy, who worked with the team to design \u201cEach, Together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a visual world yet we can be unaware of each other,\u201d she said. \u201cThis project is making us aware of one another, making us pay attention, making us curious about the person in the portrait above or to the left or right of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love watching people who are walking down the streets looking at the portraits,\u201d Houltberg said. \u201cThere\u2019s an element of surprise to it that\u2019s really fantastic. Sometimes the tendency is to put people in big groups. But if you look at these portraits, look at the eyes, and look at the humans who are represented here, you see just how wide a spectrum of humans we are. Anytime we can show the humans and not the institution, we win.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Social Media Spotlight<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"social<\/a>\"By<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dakota and Ojibwe. Norwegian and Irish. Somali and Ethiopian. On and around the land that today houses Augsburg University\u2019s Minneapolis campus, they celebrated births and mourned deaths. They spoke languages of love and laughter, stress and sorrow. They built families, businesses, and dreams. They were here and many are gone, at once everywhere and nowhere <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":9866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[218,89],"class_list":["post-9989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","tag-best-of","tag-fall-winter-2019"],"wps_subtitle":"Art installations celebrate individuals, expound on Augsburg\u2019s history, and expand the boundaries of community.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9989"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10005,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989\/revisions\/10005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}