Outside the Frame: Todd Webb in Africa

This project began with a key question: How can we bridge present-day Portland and the photographs in the exhibition Outside the Frame: Todd Webb in Africa As project lead, I facilitated the PMA’s Outside the Frame Advisory Committee, which developed the concept for this project. In partnership with the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center, we commissioned photographer Egide Foxworth to document the stories of recent immigrants through portraits and personal photographs taken in Africa, connecting their lives in Maine with their places of origin.

The result was a video that I produced and edited, combining Foxworth’s portraits with audio from interviews I conducted with participants. The video reveals the personal stories behind these images and explores how photographs can carry our histories and memories across time and geography. As The Boston Globe wrote: “Visitors to the Webb show should pause by the entrance. A monitor shows a video consisting of interviews with 16 immigrants now living in Portland. They talk about their African past and American present. The stories they tell are moving and absorbing and very much outside any frame.”

Drawing on my experience in storytelling, community engagement, and multimedia production, I shaped these individual accounts into a cohesive narrative that invited visitors to make connections across cultures, histories, and geographies.