The east wing of Manchester’s City Hall is currently home to an exhibit that celebrates life in the Queen City created by immigrant and refugee children now living there.
The 18 children who were involved are students at Inti Academy, a nonprofit afterschool program. They come from countries such as El Salvador and Columbia, Burundi and Liberia, Honduras and Uruguay or Somali and Sudan.
Each child wrote essays and created art that reflected their views of what they liked most about Manchester as part of an art program with the Currier Museum of Art.
Concord photographer Becky Field was commissioned by the Currier, which first hosted the artwork last summer, to take portraits of the young artists.
“I love working with children,” Field said. “I just had a wonderful time doing it.”
Field has been taking similar photographs since 2012 to illustrate the lives of New Hampshire’s refugees and immigrants, some of which are included in her book Different Roots, Common Dreams.
“We all have the same dreams,” she said, listing off having a home, family, security and “beautiful children” as some of the commonalities.
Field said the message of the project was two-fold: to show the community the beauty of diversity and the share the heartfelt thoughts of the children and to build the children’s self-confidence.
The project helped “show these young people they are being noticed and affirmed,” she said.
Field also hopes her work and that of the students’ can prompt a discussion on the values of immigration and refugee resettlement.
Through the work of the Manchester Arts Commission, the exhibit will be on display in the east wing of Manchester City Hall through June and can be viewed weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.