Family Photos Tell Powerful Stories in Tuscaloosa Exhibit

The pictures sitting in old family albums can tell stories that go far beyond the people captured in them, and a new Tuscaloosa exhibit is putting those stories on display.

The Arts Council of Tuscaloosa will present “You Mean the World to Me: The Real Stories in Our Family Photos” at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center from September 4 through October 29.

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The exhibit is free and open to the public and will be featured during First Friday on September 4 at 5 p.m.

Curated by Dr. Zun Lee, the exhibition explores family, identity, memory and belonging through photographs and stories submitted by people in Tuscaloosa and throughout the South.

Community members were invited to share photographs from their own family albums and explain what those images help them remember and what the pictures reveal about individuals, communities and society.

The project was developed during Lee's one-year artist laureate residency in collaboration with Dr. Robin Boylorn and the Holle Center for Communication Arts.

The exhibit was inspired by Lee's “Fade Resistance,” a collection of more than 4,000 orphaned Polaroid photographs documenting Black family life during the 20th century. A quilted collection of photographs from “Fade Resistance” will also be included in the Tuscaloosa exhibition.

The Arts Council says the exhibit gives visitors an opportunity to see how ordinary family photographs can preserve personal histories and tell larger stories about community and culture.

“You Mean the World to Me” will remain on display through October 29 at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa.

Admission is free.