Stow Mayor John Pribonic Announces 'We The People' Public Art Exhibit In Stow

Stow OH

27 April, 2022

8:54 PM

Description

Press release from the City of Stow: April 27, 2022 Mayor John Pribonic is honored to announce "We the People," a temporary art exhibit, to be displayed on the Stow City Center Campus and the Stow-Munroe Falls High School Campus in the month of May. "We the People" includes 25 large-scale portraits that make visible the refugee neighbors who have settled in Northeast Ohio; its goal is to give a platform for their stories and journeys and to invite many people—regardless of age, origin, language, or education—to learn about the experience of people who have come from other parts of the world to live in our community. This project includes people of different ages, ethnicities, and nationalities, who have settled in Ohio with each portrait accompanied by a panel that outlines each person's journey and a message they want to share. Françoise Massardier-Kenney, Ph.D., professor of French translation in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies and co-director of the Global Understanding Research Initiative (GURI) of Kent State, organized the project in collaboration with photographer Erin LaBelle of Ohio University in May of 2019. Several Akron-based refugee programs and some Kent State students also aided in the effort. This public exhibition is partly inspired by Italian photographer Luigi Toscano's "Lest We Forget" traveling exhibition of Holocaust survivor portraits, which started at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington D.C. in 2018. "The City of Stow is honored to host the 'We the People' exhibit in celebration of our diverse populations in Stow and to provide an immersive experience of art in our community that is accessible to all," stated Mayor John Pribonic. "I am grateful to all those who are featured in the photo display, who fled to the United States to avoid war, oppression, or the threat of grave danger in their home countries, for sharing the stories of their personal journeys to our region. By seeing their faces and reading their stories, we all become better connected to our fellow community members." This press release was produced by the City of Stow. The views expressed here are the author's own.