ALBUQUERQUE – Samples of a street photography project that is more than a half-century in the making are set to go on display in Albuquerque, and organizers want residents to visit and help find family members.
The exhibit called “Let the Sunshine In” is scheduled to start Dec. 21 at the Albuquerque Museum and will feature 100 images from the street photography project, KRQE-TV reports.
In 1967, the museum hired street photographers to capture the city’s ongoing urban renewal, a mass exodus from downtown to the suburbs and a time of social change.
The museum’s current Digital Archivist Jill Hartke narrowed down roughly 8,000 35-millimeter slides taken between 1967 and 1972 to best tell the Duke City’s story.
No one featured in the exhibit has been identified because the photographers practiced authentic street photography, meaning they did not ask for permission to take pictures of who or what they captured. The museum hopes that people who come to the exhibit may see themselves or family members on display.
Memories from the era include the Vietnam War, NASA’s Apollo Program and Albuquerque’s first major riot in June of 1971 at Roosevelt Park.
The riot happened one Sunday after a rock concert was canceled when the band failed to show up. When police tried to arrest would-be concert-goers for drinking in the park, a riot broke out, which spread across the city. Ultimately the uproar caused over $3 million in damage and 41 injuries.
The exhibit is broken up into three stories, including the Roosevelt Park Riot, urban renewal and the history of the Albuquerque Museum itself.
Despite some of its darker moments, the exhibit’s overall message is one of hope, Hartke said.
The exhibit’s underlying theme is Albuquerque’s population boom, said Rebecca Prinster, the museum’s assistant curator of history.
The exhibit is open from Dec. 21 through May 24.
