A Peace of My Mind
Country: USA
Participants: Various portrait sitters
Melvin Carter
‘If I would just come up with my own definition [of peace] right here and now, I think it’s people living harmoniously with one another. And when I think about harmoniously — maybe melodically, maybe rhythmically — [I mean] together in ways where we can accept one another’s idiosyncratics… In the symphony, you’ve got all kinds of stuff happening — rhythmically and melodically and harmoniously — at the same time. [Yet the instruments work] together in such a way that doesn’t clash.
Melvin Carter Jr is a retired St. Paul police officer. He works with Save Our Sons, an organization he helped found to mentor African American youth who are in trouble. Melvin refers to his time on the police force as a calling. He viewed himself as a “peace” officer, and says he went into the “peacehood” much the same way a preacher or a minister goes into the ministry.
© John Noltner
A Peace of My Mind is a multimedia arts project, created by American photographer John Noltner, that uses photographic portraits and personal stories to bridge divides and encourage dialogue around important issues. The project began in 2009 when Noltner started driving around Minnesota asking people: “What does peace meant to you?”. He subsequently drove over 150,000 miles, all over America, asking the same question. Recording their interviews and taking their portraits, Noltner has built up a story archive that documents the many definitions of peace.
Noltner created the project because he was getting increasingly frustrated by the divisive national dialogue that focuses on what separates Americans. He wanted to use his photography and storytelling skills to rediscover and explore what people have in common. He finds his portrait sitters through his own research and by word of mouth, asking others who he should talk to. They range from community leaders, civil rights activists, artists, youth workers, Holocaust survivors and oil executives to refugees and people who have lost loved ones to terrorist attacks. He meets with people in a place where they feel comfortable and starts with an approximately hour-long interview, asking them to tell him about themselves before building up to the key questions: What does peace mean to you? How do you work toward it in your life? What are some of the obstacles you encounter along the way? He always takes the portrait after the interview is finished.
Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman
‘For me, being in relationships is the ultimate requirement of peace. You can’t bring two people, two nations, two worlds into a peaceful connection without a relationship. In my own experience in interfaith dialogues, we can all live on this ideal plain — peace and understanding. And we can all kind of agree on so much, and then we get down to the details and it can fall apart … I am always confronted with my assumptions and I am there to confront others about their assumptions.’
Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman is senior rabbi at Temple Israel in Minneapolis. She participates in regular interfaith dialogue with clergy from other religions, and recognizes the benefits and challenges of working with such groups. Marcia draws on a Talmudic text that speaks of several layers of peace, and she explains that peace is not a linear process — it is an ever-evolving process — and we may find that we make progress one day only to lose it the next.’
© John Noltner
A Peace of My Mind’s portraits and stories have been exhibited throughout the United States and published in four books. Noltner engages in educational and dialogue activities alongside the exhibitions and through workshops, lectures and on-site photographic studios. He uses the work to create opportunities for audiences to explore the meaning of peace, one story at a time, and to identify ways people can begin dismantling the biases that lead to division. A discussion guide and a separate educational guide and companion text to the exhibition written by a peace scholar helps audiences to more deeply understand the varied ways people interpret and work towards peace. The collection aims to acknowledge the challenges faced by American society while building hope through the inspiring stories of people committed to peaceful futures.
‘I am not an expert on peace. I have no formal training in the subject, and I hold no related academic degree. My friends and my family will tell you that I regularly miss the mark when it comes to living in harmony with others. But celebrating perfection is not the goal for this project. It is about moving forward, about finding ways that we can bridge some of our differences, and about celebrating the common humanity that binds us’.