2021 – 2022 Program
Soomaal Fellowship is an initiative by Soomaal House of Art in partnership with Augsburg University Art Galleries. The artists considered for these fellowships work in a variety of visual art media, including both traditional and new media. During the twelve-month fellowship year, each artist receives studio visits, access to technical assistance and a culminating gallery exhibition at Augsburg University.
Yasmin Yassin and Khadija Charif, the selected 2021/22 fellows, have each produced a body of work that has culminated in an exhibition from October 9 - December 14 at Augsburg University’s Gage Family Art Gallery and Christensen Center Art Gallery. The exhibition will have educational components to supplement artworks such as public presentations and panel discussions around the show and contemporary Somali visual art.
Artists Talk & Reception
October 27, 2022, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
October 9 - December 14, 2022.
The exhibit and its programs are
free for the public.
Yasmin Yassin
Should Be Good Times
Christensen Gallery
720 22nd Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55454
Khadija Charif
Strangers of My Sight
- In Truth and Trial
Gage Gallery
2211 Riverside Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55454
Should be Good Times
by Yasmin Yassin
This exhibit features two years of seemingly disparate memories, both real and imagined, made while I waited to become a mother and the period immediately afterwards. Told in visual form, these pieces are an exploration of entering motherhood woven alongside with my Somali heritage, of understanding my own health and the imprint of all the mothers in my lineage before me, and of waiting during the so-called “in-between”—a time when I was visualizing an only slightly discernible future while I was expecting and also under lockdown during the pandemic. And even now, it is still hard to grasp.
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Based in Minnesota, Yasmin Yassin is a photographer and visual artist who started documenting her travels while working as a researcher in the field visiting Indigenous communities along the west coast. Her work focuses on celebrating and highlighting stories and subcultures within communities of color and the diaspora.
With a background in science, Yasmin brings her research experience along with her to build relationships with people and understand context before creating portraits and images. Her goal is to tell stories as authentically as possible, with integrity towards the communities that invite her into their lives. Through each image, she embodies the role of a storyteller while considering the lived experiences of those captured in relation to shared spaces and environments. Her work aims to show the world from the eyes of a storyteller—in the tradition of her East African oral-storytelling heritage—and recreate feelings in her imagery using the dynamic effects of light and color.
Strangers of My Sight – In Truth and Trial
by Khadija Charif
I dissect the conceptual journey of secrecy in the everyday stranger and the stories they carry. I explore the subtle yearning of human nature to socialize, confess and wish for acceptance in spaces unknown. While commenting on the everyday monologues of my own vulnerabilities, I wish to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquility and a wish to practice openness through collections of poems, photographs, questions, and film. In this work, I honor the strangers of our lives and their brief companionship.
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Khadija Charif is a visual artist and poet based in Minnesota. Her work examines the relationship between community and the self in relation to faith, gender, race and mobility. Khadija’s projects are embedded in the fabric of her culture and identity in the hopes of igniting curiosities and conversations alike. Moreover, she considers and investigates the existing bonds between the women in her family and that of the larger Somali community, casting light on the complexities and confluences that lie between black and immigrant women’s experiences. Khadija draws from these socio-political locations to inform her work as an artist. Khadija’s work has been exhibited at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the University of Minnesota - Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Macalester College, ArtWorks Chicago, Augsburg University, and Soomaal House of Art.
Outside of her practice, Khadija is an art organizer and works closely with artists to expand their resources and engagements in the artistic community. She is the director of marketing and communications at Soomaal House of Art, an artists-run organization and collective based in Minneapolis. In addition, Khadija is a creative strategist for Beautiful Light House, a Minnesota-based Muslim creative media company that produces enriching and exciting content for Muslim audiences globally.
Soomaal House of Art is a Minnesota-based Somali artists collective and artists-run organization. Soomaal supports and helps students, emerging and established artists find artistic community, mentorships, fellowships, resources and opportunities. Soomaal provides a platform for artists who want to use art to shape and frame critical discourse around vexing local and global matters within their respective communities and inspire them to harness the power of art as a tool for intellectual and civic engagement.
The Augsburg Art Galleries (AAG) is comprised of three main on-campus art spaces: Gage Family Art Gallery, Christensen Center Art Gallery, and Gallery720. Found on both ends of the Minneapolis campus, these spaces are dedicated to cultivating creative ideas and intellectual growth through direct engagement with visual art. The mission of the AAG is to serve our community through supporting the innovation and experimentation of visual artists as they foster creativity, conversation, engagement, and critical thinking. This community includes the students, faculty, and staff of Augsburg as well as the regional, national, and international exhibiting artists, alumni, surrounding neighborhoods, and wider Twin Cities public.