From Mogadishu to Minneapolis

The Twin Cities is home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the United States, many of whom escaped war and endured years in refugee camps. Most arrived in the United States during the past decade. Stories of the Somali Diaspora: Photographs by Abdi Roble attempts to demystify that experience and create some common ground in the communities that many Somali immigrants now call home.

What people know about Somalis is often tainted by news reports of civil war, terrorism, and piracy. That disconnect between faraway events and the experiences of Somalis here in the United States motivated photographer Abdi Roble, who emigrated from Somalia in 1989, to document the Somali refugee experience. Roble launched the Somali Documentary Project in 2003 and has taken thousands of photographs since then, a selection of which appears in the Weisman exhibition.

“This documentary project arose from a need to tell a different story about the Somali community,” says Diane Mullin, associate curator at the Weisman Art Museum. “The scenes are surprisingly familiar. One of Roble’s photographs [showing children and a parent waiting for a school bus] reminds me of my own son’s bus stop.”

The exhibition’s 55 black-and-white photographs follow Somali immigrants living in cities such as Minneapolis, Portland, Maine, and Columbus, Ohio, and are interwoven with one particular family’s journey from refugee camp through resettlement. Roble’s images capture the mind-bending transition between these disparate worlds.

“We’re hoping people will see another face of Somalis beyond strife and war,” says Mullin. “[Somalis] are part of us and part of the community, and this is what the Twin Cities looks like.” Through Sept. 27. Weisman Art Museum, 333 East River Rd., Mpls., 612-625-9494