Photography exhibit puts a face on clients served by Ministry with Community

An exhibit at the WMU College of Health and Human Services displays photographs and stories of a few clients who receive services at Ministry with Community. On exhibition in the second floor gallery of the WMU College Health and Human Services Building on Oakland Drive, the display was to end after Dec. 20 but now will be up through Jan. 10.

The portraits and stories are getting attention at the college, said Gay Walker, coordinator for the college’s Holistic Health Care Program and coordinator for the exhibits that appear in the gallery.

“It’s very different than a typical exhibit. There’s a purpose here,” Walker said. “My intention has been to bring in not just exhibits for their beauty but ones that say something, they say something important.”

Wojtyniak’s project features photo portraits that are overlain with the written stories of those captured in the picture.

Visitors to the display will see two layers over the picture that they can open to read the person’s narrative, captured in interviews by a Ministry with Community staff member.

Originally, these portraits were taken and provided to the Ministry clients as a gift, funded by a ChangeMaker grant from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation.

But Wojtyniak said they needed a wider audience.

“This exhibit is offered as a gift. Not from me, but from the members in the portraits,” Wojtyniak said in a news release.

“The members shared their stories and themselves with me, resulting in many engaging portraits. However, the powerful stories and portraits begged for a wider audience.”

The exhibit can be viewed from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. For more information contact Walker at 269-387-3839 or gay.walker@wmich.edu.

Read the full article: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/12/photography_exhibit_enduring_s.html