ABSTRACT
This essay explores how photography – specifically, portraiture – is used as a visual-storytelling technique and community-engagement tool to build a deeper relationship between a collaborative team of design professionals, a photographer, and a community’s narratives about history and place. The storying telling process occurred as part of the design process and installation of the Miller Prize at the AT&T Facility in Columbus, Indiana. Photography was used to uplift individual stories that, in turn, highlighted and helped the team understand the community. The portraits were paired with commentary from the subjects who shared the stories of women who have impacted their lives within the larger dialogue of the erasure of women and their contribution in history. Along with myriad community-engagement methods, designers use photography as a storytelling tool and allow community members to see their perspectives play out in the process and the ultimate design.
Examples are discussed that influenced and inspired the approaches for the XX Miller Prize, including Ken McFarlane’s portrait series From the Root to the Fruit, Mary Beth Meehan’s Seeing Newnan, Coston-Hardy’s work for Olin for Detroit’s Eastern Market, and her work for the National Street Service.
