February 25, 2008: Exhibits at MCP
Continuing This Month
Barb Nei
|
Minnesota Projects Gallery:
Barbra Nei + Similitudes: the Group K Girls from Zhejiang, China and other investigations
November 17, 2007 to February 10, 2008
Bio
Barbra Nei is a Minneapolis artist working in photography, media, and installation. Her works exploring identity and history are included in private and corporate collections and have been exhibited widely, including Galerie Quang (Paris), Judson Memorial Church (New York), and the Museum of Contemporary Photography Midwest Photographer's Print Study Program (Chicago). She has received fellowships from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations as well as funding through FORECAST Public Artworks, Intermedia Arts, and the NEA for her installations and public art projects. Along with the Group K Girls photographic project, she is working on the launch of D-i-a-logz, an interactive public artwork involving recently arrived international teenagers in the Twin Cities.
Statement
Like most photographers, I am an archivist; I collect faces, people, and information in an attempt to better understand the world. My work explores the potential of photography and media to tell our stories; can what we are be evinced from a photograph or a film image? I have looked to the work of the past as my guide; intrigued by the scientific, social, and medical archives of the 19th century, I have created my own archives, photographing friends, family members and acquaintances.
My recent projects have involved immigration, collaborating with international students in an exploration of their relocation and assimilation experiences. Work on these projects has helped me begin to understand the experience of being the 'other' in a strange new land. The issue of international adoption, like immigration, is a complicated one. Since the adoption of my daughter, I have sought ways to help her assimilate into American culture and yet embrace her own cultural heritage and history. Prompted by a desire to help piece together her story, I have begun a photographic documentation project of Qu and her Chinese 'sisters' that we met during her adoption trip in 2002. I will be making a visual record of each of these girls, some of whom who have known each other since before we met, every five years, documenting the changes as they mature and grow. The Group K Girls from Zhejiang, China, is the inaugural exhibition of this project.
web links:
www.2cla.umn.edu
www.mnartists.org/Barbra_Nei
