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The University Avenue Project
The University Avenue Project: The Language of Urbanism – A Six-Mile Photographic Inquiry, Volume 1
Acclaimed photographer Wing Young Huie explores the complex cultural and socioeconomic diversity of the St. Paul neighborhoods along University Avenue. This urban corridor connects a burgeoning condominium community, mom and pop stores, big-box retailers, schools, and family homes. At one public school alone, students have emigrated from sixty-six countries. These colliding cultures reflect the gamut of the evolving American experience, from old world to developing world to modern world.
The book, which springs from the public exhibition of the same name—a six-mile-long gallery running from May through November 2010 with 500 pictures exhibited on store windows and buildings and projected at night onto a large outdoor screen—explores the power of photography to destroy stereotypes and reveal cultural richness among the peoples of a city. The book and the exhibit, presented by Public Art Saint Paul, with major support from the Joyce Foundation, document the everyday lives of citizens connected by this singular street. In addition, Huie engages the subjects of his photographs with these questions:
• What are you?
• What advice would you give a stranger?
• How do you think others see you?
• What don’t others see?
• How has race affected you?
The University Avenue Project not only collects Wing Young Huie’s stunning photography but also provides the stories behind the photos in the residents’ own words and a behind-the-scenes look at the complexities of staging this nationally significant exhibit. Volume 2 will document the reactions to and interactions with the exhibit and will be available in August. For more information, visit www.theuniversityavenueproject.com.
Wing Young Huie has photographed the dizzying mixture of socioeconomic and cultural realities of the changing American city. His best-known work, Lake Street USA, transformed six miles of a Minneapolis thoroughfare into an epic photo gallery. The University Avenue Project will be installed in St. Paul in May 2010.
The book, which springs from the public exhibition of the same name—a six-mile-long gallery running from May through November 2010 with 500 pictures exhibited on store windows and buildings and projected at night onto a large outdoor screen—explores the power of photography to destroy stereotypes and reveal cultural richness among the peoples of a city. The book and the exhibit, presented by Public Art Saint Paul, with major support from the Joyce Foundation, document the everyday lives of citizens connected by this singular street. In addition, Huie engages the subjects of his photographs with these questions:
• What are you?
• What advice would you give a stranger?
• How do you think others see you?
• What don’t others see?
• How has race affected you?
The University Avenue Project not only collects Wing Young Huie’s stunning photography but also provides the stories behind the photos in the residents’ own words and a behind-the-scenes look at the complexities of staging this nationally significant exhibit. Volume 2 will document the reactions to and interactions with the exhibit and will be available in August. For more information, visit www.theuniversityavenueproject.com.
Wing Young Huie has photographed the dizzying mixture of socioeconomic and cultural realities of the changing American city. His best-known work, Lake Street USA, transformed six miles of a Minneapolis thoroughfare into an epic photo gallery. The University Avenue Project will be installed in St. Paul in May 2010.
128 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2010
18 people want to read
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June 23, 2020For April, I read The University Avenue Project, by Wing Young Huie. This is the book that came out of his yearlong project photographing the stretch of University Avenue from the Saint Paul capitol on the east to Emerald Street on the west, which marks the Saint Paul-Minneapolis border. While I didn’t get the chance to see Wing’s photography exhibit in action last year, the book paints a picture that I think might be just as vivid. The book includes short stories about the people in the pictures, which give another dimension to the portraits. The University Avenue Project also tells how the project idea came about, discusses Wing’s experience as the guy behind the lens and gives background on some of his past work.
There are several reasons Wing chose University Avenue to photograph. What initially drew him to the area, he says, was its Southeast Asian population. Wing’s parents emigrated from China and worked their way through the stress of a new life in a different place, a foreign language, tight purse strings and many mouths to feed. They started their own business and worked hard at it until their kids were grown up and they could retire. As the youngest of six children, Wing admits he got a better deal than his older siblings. He did not have to log long hours at his parents’ restaurant and he was free to pursue his interests and goals― photography and a college education― in a way that his brothers and sisters were not. Wing did not face the same struggles the rest of his family did and sees a gap between their experience and his own. For Wing, the multi-generational immigrant population around University Avenue reflects that gap.
In addition to the personal draw, University Avenue appealed to Wing simply as a diverse section of the city worthy of a closer look. The buildings in the neighborhood are a mix of churches and mosques, schools, bars, grocery stores, small businesses and big box stores, libraries, homes and non-profits. The people are a mix of different backgrounds: linguistic, ethnic, national, racial and other types of markers. There are run-down sections and ones that are more well-kept. To Wing, all of this “reflects the colliding human kaleidoscope of the evolving American experience.”
Finally, sponsorship led Wing to settle on University Avenue as a location for his project. Dickerman Park on University Avenue was chosen by Public Art St. Paul for a renovation project, and the project managers hoped it would include local art. Wing had an impressive photography portfolio. He had recently completed Lake Street USA, a documentary photography project in Minneapolis. Lake Street USA earned him recognition among the Twin Cities art crowd and Public Art Saint Paul took note. They helped him secure a $50,000 grant to complete a documentary photography project on University Avenue.
Wing found his subjects everywhere. He visited religious establishments, hair salons, homes and schools, including Hubbs. He stopped passersby on the street and he approached people riding the bus. He asked these questions of his subjects:
1. What are you?
2. How do you think others see you? What don’t they see?
3. What advice would you give to a stranger?
4. What is your favorite word?
5. Describe an incident that changed you.
6. How has race affected you?
Wing then chose the answer he found most compelling, had the person write it on a hand-held chalk board and asked them to pose with their words. The effect is impressive. There were very few photos that did not make me sit back and think. They are funny, charming, deep and jarring. One shows a woman squinting into the sun with a little pig-tailed kid― presumably her daughter― leaning into her. The chalkboard reads, “I was shot 5 times. You have 2 live life to the fullest.”
The book offered me a new and much deeper perspective of the area I work in than the one I get in my tiny computer lab each day. I would recommend it to anyone who lives or works in the University-Frogtown area.
There are several reasons Wing chose University Avenue to photograph. What initially drew him to the area, he says, was its Southeast Asian population. Wing’s parents emigrated from China and worked their way through the stress of a new life in a different place, a foreign language, tight purse strings and many mouths to feed. They started their own business and worked hard at it until their kids were grown up and they could retire. As the youngest of six children, Wing admits he got a better deal than his older siblings. He did not have to log long hours at his parents’ restaurant and he was free to pursue his interests and goals― photography and a college education― in a way that his brothers and sisters were not. Wing did not face the same struggles the rest of his family did and sees a gap between their experience and his own. For Wing, the multi-generational immigrant population around University Avenue reflects that gap.
In addition to the personal draw, University Avenue appealed to Wing simply as a diverse section of the city worthy of a closer look. The buildings in the neighborhood are a mix of churches and mosques, schools, bars, grocery stores, small businesses and big box stores, libraries, homes and non-profits. The people are a mix of different backgrounds: linguistic, ethnic, national, racial and other types of markers. There are run-down sections and ones that are more well-kept. To Wing, all of this “reflects the colliding human kaleidoscope of the evolving American experience.”
Finally, sponsorship led Wing to settle on University Avenue as a location for his project. Dickerman Park on University Avenue was chosen by Public Art St. Paul for a renovation project, and the project managers hoped it would include local art. Wing had an impressive photography portfolio. He had recently completed Lake Street USA, a documentary photography project in Minneapolis. Lake Street USA earned him recognition among the Twin Cities art crowd and Public Art Saint Paul took note. They helped him secure a $50,000 grant to complete a documentary photography project on University Avenue.
Wing found his subjects everywhere. He visited religious establishments, hair salons, homes and schools, including Hubbs. He stopped passersby on the street and he approached people riding the bus. He asked these questions of his subjects:
1. What are you?
2. How do you think others see you? What don’t they see?
3. What advice would you give to a stranger?
4. What is your favorite word?
5. Describe an incident that changed you.
6. How has race affected you?
Wing then chose the answer he found most compelling, had the person write it on a hand-held chalk board and asked them to pose with their words. The effect is impressive. There were very few photos that did not make me sit back and think. They are funny, charming, deep and jarring. One shows a woman squinting into the sun with a little pig-tailed kid― presumably her daughter― leaning into her. The chalkboard reads, “I was shot 5 times. You have 2 live life to the fullest.”
The book offered me a new and much deeper perspective of the area I work in than the one I get in my tiny computer lab each day. I would recommend it to anyone who lives or works in the University-Frogtown area.
January 13, 2013
I used my Christmas money to buy both volumes of this book- it will go into my classroom library someday. I am quite familiar with University Ave- I use the library, the plasma center and the shopping center. It is a fascinating area.
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