PhotoVoicesNE follow-up

[FALL 2019]
Dear NENA neighbors:

Thank you for your enormous show of community support for our PhotoVoicesNE project this summer (2019). As a reminder, PhotoVoicesNE is a Northeast Neighborhood Association (NENA) community art project and an act of democracy. Neighbors submitted photos­ sharing what they love about the NE neighborhood — along with a sentence or two of text to provide a “voice” to the image. The photos, along with historic photos of NENA, were on display at Tinworks Art in August. Viewers were asked to add their own "voice" by writing additional comments on the wall. We want to ensure that the Northeast Neighborhood continues to be a place where people want to live, work, visit, and patronize. 
 
We had over 80 photos submitted and over 425 people who came out to view the exhibit and add their voice. It was a huge success! Thank you to all of the volunteers, photo takers, and comment makers! Mark Egge took the lead on getting the final exhibit photographed. Please see this link for the panorama: http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/217435
 
We also received some good press. Check it out around 3:45 in the video link below:
https://www.kbzk.com/news/top-stories-from-todays-montana-this-morning-aug-12-2019

NEXT STEPS

We want to keep our momentum going by using the photos and voices as input into the Neighborhood Conversation Overlay District neighborhood standards and guidelines.

In the Spring of 2020, students from an Architectural Research Methods course at MSU compiled and analyzed data collected from the PhotoVoices exhibit to identify themes within the photo and caption submissions and presented their findings to the VisionNE group and City staff. Your photovoice submissions and students’ work has continued to spur VisionNE’s work to define neighborhood character in a way that aligns with City plans such as the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District update that was completed last year.

In the Fall of 2020, a Participatory Planning Course and undergraduate researcher will work with the VisionNE group to help identify further data collection and engagement techniques to define “neighborhood character” in the NE neighborhood and other neighborhoods across the city.

 If you are interested in taking part going forward, please email Suzanne Held sznbzn@gmail.com

 
From the PhotoVoicesNE team.