The images in the current exhibition “100+: A Photograph for Every Year of the MIA.” drawn from the museum’s collection, chronicle the century since the MIA was founded. Visitors were invited to share their own photographs and the stories behind them. Here are a few of these #tbt submissions, flashbacks to meaningful moments in their lives.
The photo is of James Tillman and Mary Norman Tillman leading an antiracism seminar in the early 1970s at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, in New Brighton. Founded in the cauldron of the 1960s, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been a leader in the fight for civil rights, equality, and the common good. Wilson Yates, at that time professor of Church and Community, was instrumental in raising the consciousness of students and faculty to the problems of white racism. Out of his experience as a Southerner from Missouri and participant in the Civil Right movement in the 1960s he introduced a Racism Seminary to the curriculum. He had been the first white student jailed in the Nashville sit-ins in 1960.
The Twin Cities, however, was not the South. Only 10 percent of the population was black, and manifestations of racism were often subtle; racism needed to be faced directly by the white community. In the fall of 1971, Yates introduced a White Racism Workshop into the first-year program, incorporating it into the Christianity and Culture course. In these workshops there was an intensive program of raising the awareness of the students to white racism. To achieve this goal he used the program developed by James Tillman and Mary Norman Tillman. The Tillmans were active participants in the program.
—Pamela Y. Cook
In 2011 my dad suggested we undertake a thing he had heard about on the Internet called a “365 Project,” taking at least one picture every day for a year. I picked up my love of photography from him so this concept was right up our alley. On January 4, 2011, we started. As the year wore on I found myself taking few pictures of things in my life and more of the people in my life. I also resolved to take a limited number of frames each day (I blame Jim Brandenburg’s book Chased by the Light for that idea). So it was during a year’s worth of effort that I had my camera along the day I took this image, because normally bringing a camera that day would have been off the table. While this isn’t a picture of someone, it is about them.
The picture was taken on December 27, 2011, in the home of Curt (the father of my best friend Seth), who was dying. This was the day we moved him from his home into an apartment. I believe he had cancer, but no one has officially said the word and it’s not my business in the end. I went along to help a man who had been kind, friendly, and a source of wonderful conversation. I went to help my best friend in a difficult time. It was taken at 4 p.m. in the “golden hour” light just before I walked through the kitchen and out into the cold. What is more ephemeral than butterflies in winter? Curt passed away six days later on January 2, 2012.
—Cory Funk
The Princeton picture was taken in July 1980 just before sunset, when the light is the most beautiful. I was driving down the main street of Princeton, Minnesota, on the way home from a festival in Foley, when I noticed the reflection of the Strand Theatre in a storefront window. I stopped the car and took the picture.
At the time I was working for the Walker Art Center, and one of my responsibilities was to supervise the Photography Department, which was headed by Tom Arndt. Through an association with Tom I developed a strong interest in photography and began photographing small-town festivals, county fairs, the Minnesota State Fair, downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, rural and urban architecture, and a few landscapes. Over a four-year period I shot thousands of photographs. In 1984, I was hired by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. My wife and I moved to LA, lived there for 10 years, had three children, and I never photographed again.
I carried boxes and boxes of negatives from Minneapolis to LA to Denver and back to Minneapolis. I had never looked at any of the images. My wife, Lockie, purchased a scanner for me in 2010, and I began scanning the negatives into Photoshop. I’m still working my way through the boxes.
—Brick Chapman
New city, new loves. In January 2011 I moved to the Twin Cities from Battle Creek, Michigan, after accepting a job, having never even visited—the reputation of the area was that good. My mid-career move traded a long career in local government for corporate communications, a house for an apartment, and a car-based city for a walkable neighborhood. My parents took us to museums as a kid. They also ingrained in me the sense that a community’s culture is told in its breakfast restaurants and its museums, and I would do well to check out both before settling into a place long term. So among my first new-resident visits was to the MIA. This picture was taken by my significant other, showing me ahead of him on the stairs. He eventually decided not to move here and we parted ways after 17 years. Recently, a new love has entered my life and I’m pleased to say he enjoys both a good breakfast and a good museum.
—Michelle Reen