FINDING YOUR AUDIENCE:

David Bowman grew up in Chicagoland, studied journalism in Madison, traversed the Australian outback via camel, and drifted to the Twin Cities some time thereafter. One of the first people he met in Minnesota was fashion photographer Richard Avedon, who was giving a talk to photo students at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Bowman asked what advice he might give a struggling artist. Avedon replied: Start working.

Bowman has photographed for publications like WIRED, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and National Geographic. Over the course of his career, he earned an MFA, and was named Best Of ASMP by the American Society of Media Photographers. In addition to making photographs for long-term projects, Bowman also teaches art in Minnesota high schools, colleges, and prisons.

Lisa Nebenzahl is a multidisciplinary artist whose work ponders themes of resilience and fragility, loss and persistence and the passage of time. She explores these ideas using shadow and light, working with the natural world of plants, water and sky. Her interest in this imagery embraces the interplay of chance and surprise that comes from observing and responding to the natural world. Her practice explores photography, historical photographic processes, the book arts, printmaking, sculpture, and collage/montage. Nebenzahl is a three-time recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant and the 2020 inaugural McKnight Fellowship for Book Arts. Her work is in the collections of The Getty Research Institute, The Newberry Library, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston Hirsch Library, the University of Delaware Special Collection, the Phoenix Public Library Rare Book Room and the University of Colorado Boulder Rare and Distinctive Collections. Lisa holds a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Mickey Smith (US/NZ) is an award winning conceptual artist and photographer. For over two decades, her practice has been engaged with a longstanding inquiry into libraries, books and archives — in particular the social significance of their physical existence or disappearance.

Smith’s work has been exhibited internationally and belongs to numerous public and private collections including the Arts House Trust, Museum of Modern Art Library, North Dakota Museum of Art, Sheldon Museum of Art and Weisman Art Museum. She is the recipient of grants and awards from Americans for the Arts, CEC Arts Link, Creative New Zealand, Forecast Public Art and McKnight Foundation. Her acclaimed touring exhibition, Morphologies, is currently traveling through the United States and New Zealand.

Smith lives and works between Minnesota and New Zealand.

Wing Young Huie has photographically captured the complex cultural realities of American society for 50 years. His photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries locally, nationally and internationally, but his best-known works, “Frogtown” (1995), “Lake Street USA” (2000), and the “University Avenue Project” (2010), were epic public art projects that transformed Minneapolis and Saint Paul thoroughfares into community galleries, reflecting the everyday lives of thousands of its citizens.

He has received many grants, honors, and awards, including Artist of the Year (Minnesota StarTribune, 2000), McKnight Distinguished Artist Award (the only photographer to ever receive the award, 2018), his sixth book, “Chinese-ness: The Meanings of Identity and the Nature of Belonging” (MNHS Press, 2018) won a Minnesota Book Award and a Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, Award for Excellence (University of Minnesota, Hubbard School of Journalism, 2020), and a Josephine Lee, Asian American Studies Program Community Award (University of Minnesota, inaugural award, 2025).

The Minnesota Historical Society is currently acquiring 5000 of his photographs that reflect his 50-year career, which will all be in their research room and online, to be made accessible for researchers, educators, and the general public.