As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a group of portraits in the Mohawk Valley may be worth many more. Photographs of refugees living in Utica are on display at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. Melissa Krull explains what the exhibit is all about.

"They tell a lot of different stories, and they tell the American story at the same time," said Kathryn Stam, a SUNY Polytechnic Institute associate professor of anthropology.

Several different stories told through portraits line the walls of the Gannett Gallery. Each taken by photographer Lynne Browne.

"I go to a cultural event and a lot of times there's a lot of dancing, and there's singing," Browne said. "And so, there's a lot of activity. I pull people aside and I take their photo then."

Part of the exhibit includes a collage of photos taken by refugees in Utica, collected by Kathryn Stam.

"It's Facebook photos that were taken with permission from refugees' Facebook pages," said Stam. "And so, there's kind of an intimate look at refugees' lives."

They said the pictures are effective ways to, in a way, tell individual stories.

"If I can change one person's attitude or mindset about refugees, then I've done my job," Browne said.

"This is just another way that I'm trying to share the story, and usually I share it in words, but this time I'm sharing it in just photographs, and I'm really eager to hear how people think about it," Stam said. "If they can relate to the pictures without knowing everything about the background of those pictures."

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