Riffe Gallery Photography Exhibition Offers Portrait of Migrant Life
by Lacey Luce
The Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery presents Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community in the lobby of the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts from September 19 to October 25, 2006.
With photographs by Gary Harwood and text panels by David Hassler, Growing Season portrays the life of a community of migrant workers in northeast Ohio. These portraits show a community rich in social capital and give voice in a new way to a group of people largely unseen and misunderstood.
“When I first received permission to photograph the migrant workers on a family farm in Hartville, I anticipated that I would be documenting hardship,” said Harwood, who began his work in 2001. “Migrant workers continually face difficult conditions while trying to support themselves and their families. Farm work is physical, hot and dirty. The days in the fields are long and exhausting. Growers can be brutal employers, and there is no shortage of documented cases of terrible living and working conditions.
“What I found; however, was a very different story.”
Harwood discovered that the workers and their families live in a strong, tightly knit community supported by the Hartville Migrant Center and many caring neighbors. About 70 percent of the workers return annually to this small Ohio town where they have established solid friendships and stable lives.
Through the course of four growing seasons, Harwood came to know and gain the trust of the Mexican American and Mexican migrant families who travel each year to Ohio from the southern United States and Mexico.
From the beginning he displayed his photographs on the walls of the Migrant Center so that the entire community of more than 300 workers and their families could see what he found to be special and captivating about their lives. Though his work began with field photos, over time he focused more on family pictures, as he was invited to photograph baptisms, first communions, weddings, birthday parties and private family events.
In 2004 writer David Hassler began collaborating with Harwood on this documentary project. That spring, when the workers returned to the farm, David began interviewing the migrants as well as community members and volunteers at the center. Working from the transcripts of his interviews, David wrote first-person narratives that speak with the voices of the people themselves.
The narratives with Harwood’s photographs give viewers an intimate glimpse into the lives of this tight-knit community and provide a new understanding of the migrant experience.
Growing Season is on view in the Riffe Center lobby from September 19 to October 25. Lobby hours are Monday – Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday noon to 8 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Closed state holidays. Admission is free. (Please note that the Riffe Center lobby hours are different from the Riffe Gallery hours.)
The Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts is on the corner of State and High streets, downtown Columbus, Ohio. For more information, visit www.riffegallery.org, e-mail riffegallery@oac.state.oh.us or phone 614/644-9624.
Image seen here is a photograph by Gary Harwood titled Ancient Art.
The Riffe Gallery is supported by the Ohio Building Authority. Media sponsors include Alive, CityScene, Ohio Magazine and Time Warner.
The Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery showcases the work of Ohio’s artists and curators, exhibitions produced by the Ohio Arts Council’s International Program and the collections of the region’s museums and galleries. The Riffe Gallery’s Education Program seeks to increase public appreciation and understanding of those exhibitions.
The Ohio Arts Council is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally and economically.
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