Architect and photographer Patricia Mutebi uses her new gallery show to illustrate the rich backgrounds of Minnesota’s immigrant and Indigenous communities.
“Threads of Us: Weaving Identity and Place,” which opens Friday at Modern Day Me gallery in Minneapolis, started as an architectural prompt, to take an object of significance and build a space around it. Mutebi saw an opportunity to turn the project inside out, and ask Minnesotans: What parts of home do you bring with you when you leave that place?
From this question, Mutebi began a portrait series last year, starting with family and friends. She asked each participant to consider the question, and come dressed in the clothing and carrying the objects of “home,” whatever that meant to them. Before sitting for portraits, she interviewed the collaborators, which she also filmed for a documentary she’s planning…