COLUMBUS, OH.-The Columbus Museum of Art presents Stories from the Somali Diaspora: Photographs by Abdi Roble, September 9 through November 25, 2007. For fifteen years, Somali-born photographer Abdi Roble has been documenting the forced dispersal of the Somali population from their traditional homeland. This exhibition presents fifty-five black-and-white images that document the transition of Somali communities from Africa to the United States, from refugee status to becoming an integral part of American society. Included are photographs taken in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio; and Maine—home to three of the larger Somali communities in the U.S. Several photographs trace one family’s journey from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to their arrival in California and subsequent resettlement in Maine.

“We are proud to present a selection of Abdi’s work at the Museum,” said Catherine Evans, CMA’s Chief Curator. “His work is as important for the Somali community worldwide as it is for the central Ohio community. His images offer a visual record of an increasingly global culture, one which has no written history.”

Abdi Roble was born in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1964. He grew up traveling with his father, a veterinarian who provided free care to the animals of farmers. For most of his adult life in Somalia, Roble was a professional soccer player. Due to political turmoil and a stagnant economy, he left Somalia and arrived in the United States in 1989. At first he found jobs busing tables and working in hotels. When he discovered a camera at a flea market on Cleveland Avenue in Columbus, Ohio, he was inspired to become a photographer. By 1994, he had become a freelance photographer for the Columbus Dispatch and the Columbus Post. Shortly thereafter, his photographs appeared in Leica View magazine and he went to work at Midwest Photo Exchange. Since then, he has started two photography groups, the “African American Photographers of North America” and the “Focus Group.” In 2003, he founded the Somali Documentary Project with Doug Rutledge, Tariq Tarey and Stanley Kayne. The mission of the Somali Documentary Project is to use photography to produce an archival record of the members of the Somali Diaspora while they are still engaging in the cultural practices of their homeland. For information more information, see www.somaliproject.org.

This exhibition is organized by the Columbus Museum of Art and Arts Midwest in partnership with the Ohio Arts Council. It will travel to the University of Minnesota’s Weismann Museum of Art in Minneapolis in the Fall of 2008 and to the Bates College Museum of Art in Lewiston, Maine in the Winter of 2009.