Photos document economic impact of Kirkbride
It’s said that a picture can paint a thousand words, but can photographs alone be enough to show the economic impact the Kirkbride Building has had on the Fergus Falls community?
That is the project Minnesota State University Moorhead professor Donald Clark is working on for his Hinge Artists Residency at the Kirkbride.
The goal of his project is to show, through photography, what brought the Kirkbride to Fergus Falls and how its redevelopment would benefit the community.
Born in Tampa, Florida, Clark has spent the past 18 years teaching photography as MSUM.
“I kind of fell into it,” he said.
Clark, whose first camera was a Canon AE-1 he purchased in 1983 after his freshman year of highschool, has seen a lot of changes in the photography industry.
“I wanted to get to know how to use it,” Clark said. “I thought I would take a photography class and before you knew it I was getting a degree in art with an emphasis on photography.”
Photography has come a long way in the past three decades, but Clark describes digital photography as an additional tool, not a replacement for film.
“In terms of quality, with digital, I can do some things I couldn’t do easily with film,” he said. “With film, I can do somethings I couldn’t do easily with digital.”
Clark likened this combining of the old and new in photography with how he is studying the Kirkbride’s origin and future.
For his research, Clark reached out to various people and groups in Fergus Falls, speaking with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, the Fergus Falls Area Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Hal Leland.
He shared one interesting tale he discovered during his research.
In order to show the community how the Kirkbride was impacting them, the staff who work at the building were paid in $2 bills, Clark said.
“Everyone who saw those bills saw that was money coming from up here to show the community that impact,” he said.
In Clark’s opinion, the Kirkbride is only a regional attraction if the building is kept whole.
“I’ve heard that some people would like to tear it down and leave the tower building, and perhaps put up some condos,” he said. “My thought is, if you do something like that, you aren’t adding to the community. People aren’t going to move to Fergus Falls to live in condos on the hill. You aren’t adding to the economic vitality.”
The wide variety of people who are drawn to the Kirkbride for tours, shows that it can become a destination, but only if it is kept whole, he said.
“The impact of the space is the big visual,” Clark said. “The magnitude of this place is really impressive. You have to keep the whole thing to draw people.”