Photographer Yasmin Yassin seems to see everyone in Minnesota eye-to-eye: say, a small-town mayor in rural Minnesota, or a synchronized swimming crew. She may not share a history with any of these individuals. Yasmin landed in south Minneapolis by way of Canada. She was formally trained in the sciences, taking a degree in microbiology and genetics, and then a master’s in public health at John Hopkins University. 

Her talent for documentary portraiture comes from the years she’s spent growing her photography skills, combining her scientific methods with a remarkable creativity. Yasmin’s photos offer a direct glimpse into the lives of other people—few of whom have sat for an artist before. 

For the New Yorker magazine, she shared the experiences of an Afghan woman in Duluth. This collection depicts familiar things like a tea kettle in the kitchen, and a young girl taking selfies.   These are universal experiences but specific stories about a distinct community. The viewer leaves with a feeling of hope and togetherness. 

Yasmin’s first solo exhibit, “Should Be Good Times,” appeared as part of a 2020 fellowship at  Soomaal House of Art, in south Minneapolis. She also works through Authority Collective, a group of 300-plus women and nonbinary creators in the world of photography, film, and virtual reality (or augmented reality) industries. She has gained national and international recognition for her photography, and has worked with well-known names such as Nike, Apple, and the Wall Street Journal.

In 2023, Yasmin produced “Dhaanto,” a short documentary on the Somali Museum’s Dance Troupe. Since Sahan Journal spoke to Yasmin, “Dhaanto” has screened in Hargeisa, Somaliland; and at the Millenium Film Workshop in New York City.  

Following on those successes, Yasmin says she has a few exciting projects on the way in 2024—stay tuned!

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us a little about your background. How did you end up living in Minnesota? 

I was born and raised in Canada: I grew up primarily around the West Coast between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Education-wise, my background is in the sciences. Yet I was always interested in the arts, despite not having formal artistic training. 

Growing up, I spent a lot of time biking around and exploring, and taking photos. I moved to Minnesota just over five years ago, and I live here with my family now. 

Growing up, how did you and your family talk about your connection to Somalia? 

My family is a group of photo takers. We documented a lot: I remember taking film rolls to Walmart as a kid and waiting to pick up the warm envelope of freshly developed images. So I grew up having boxes and boxes of photos of my family from that time, and also of back home, with extended family members and my grandparents.  

This was able to give me a glimpse of what life in Somalia was like for them. Rooted in the diaspora, I grew up with an element of worldliness. 

We didn’t have a large community where I’m from. So coming to Minneapolis allowed me to truly connect to the Somali community. My debut short, “Dhaanto,” is special to me because it was the first time I was able to do a film on Somalis. It was a passion project of mine that was in my head for a long while. 

I wanted to do this project whether or not I received funding. I ended up receiving some funding from the St. Paul Neighborhood Network to pay my crew members and it was so fulfilling to be a storyteller within my community. 

Somalis are usually referred to as a community of storytellers and actually embodying that in this project is the highlight of my career to date. It feels like something is finally clicking.

Was art a big part of your childhood or teen years? What did that look like? 

It was a part of my childhood for sure. I have always been interested in art. I started drawing when I was six. I started with realism—sketching. With realism, I was able to really understand perspective in art. And then I started taking photos, just bringing my camera to school and taking photos of people, especially on the last day of school. 

At one point, I had the thought to go to school for art, such as Emily Carr University of Art and Design, in Vancouver. However, art was truly a hobby, and as the child of immigrants, I was always encouraged to study something that would get me a job immediately after college. I then went on to receive a degree in science from the University of British Columbia, in Western Canada. 

Can you talk about your first experiences picking up a camera? 

Beyond taking photos in childhood, and the brief time where I scrounged up money from my summer job after high school to buy a Holga camera from Urban Outfitters, I really started taking photos seriously after college. 

A large part of my artistic awakening is when I spent a few years on Vancouver Island. I spent a lot of time biking and volunteering. I learned how to strip bikes and put them together. During this time, I started taking photos of my travels and the people I came across. 

When I started working as a field researcher in British Columbia, I was traveling a lot and living out of my suitcase for a year and a half. I was stuck in a lot of small towns and motel rooms. That’s when I started taking photography more seriously, to document my life a bit more. 

You trained in the sciences–specifically microbiology and genetics. What drew you to that work?

I remember walking into the first lecture of an intro microbiology class and falling in love. Prior to that, my sciences-degree courses really weren’t interesting to me as much. The whole class felt like a story, the microbiological and genetic systems and how complex they were, and yet so elegant still. 

I’m still interested in that, which is why I also went to graduate school for public health afterwards, in Baltimore. The sciences for me felt like another art form: designing an experiment or solving a problem set in a way that was innovative and also somehow elegant, too. 

What does your work in that field look like now? 

I’m still drawn to the work. As a research scientist, I’m able to be methodological and creative in how I approach ways to solve things. It’s helpful to take some of that differential type of thinking into the artistic work that I do. 

People alway say to me that I’m working with one side of my brain for each: right for art and left for the science part. But I think both fields are more similar than people think.

Writers and critics always want to draw a connection between the different parts of an artist’s background. Do you see connections between your two jobs? Talk about that! 

People can do multiple things at the same time that don’t have to feed into each other. I’m inspired by the idea of people having many skills and doing many things and sharing that with the world.  I’m inspired a lot by the idea of Somalis having many skills. My grandmother was an accountant, but also good at sewing.

Also, philosophers and scientists always did multiple things. When you read their bios, it’ll list out these things that they did, in addition to what they were known for. [Vladimir] Nabokov, for example: He was an artist and a scientist as well. He studied insects but was also very good at writing prose. 

It’s this idea of floating between fields. People are built to learn and grow. My personal projects focus on subcultures. I float between different projects and people. I come in, get to know a certain group, make art with them, and then leave. 

I do not think my art is directly impacted by my science background, but it has shaped my practice and workflow as an artist. Maybe it does subconsciously. However, I would not call myself an artistic scientist. By being multidisciplinary, it will bleed into a lot of different areas of your life. 

How would you describe your technique or style of photography?

When people ask, I say my photography style floats between the genres of fine art and documentary. I try to create beautiful imagery that also highlights that glimmer of stillness you can see in people when they’re truly themselves. That stillness is something that I try to carry through even when I’m doing motion imagery or film work, too: I’m trying to sort of paint visually—using color and light—a story that feels like poetry.

For my personal story projects, I approach it very much like I would do a research one. In terms of keeping it very participatory: I have an idea about a project and then I consult with the person I’m wanting to work with and ask them what they think. Sometimes that also requires some background reading and research on my part, so that I can really understand context. 

I want to make sure when I’m sharing someone’s story that it’s accurate to them. There’s many truths that can be true at the same time. But I interrogate if [what I’m sharing] is fair and is it accurate?  It’s a delicate balance, but I want to be really intentional about what’s being portrayed. 

On your website, a lot of your photos portray women and marginalized folks. Can you talk about how your own identities–as a Somali woman, a mother, an immigrant, and more—play out in your relationship with the people you’re photographing? 

I carry all my identities with me, all of those things you mentioned. They inform my practice:  All my experiences and who I am will create a different portrait compared to someone else. If I’m taking a portrait of a woman, I’m bringing my identity of womanhood along with me to connect with the person, and also in the poses I gravitate towards when I’m ultimately taking the photo. 

I really do think each and every artist (especially in photography) is unique in how they approach their imagery. It’s not just about a click of a button. We bring so much of ourselves into each photo.

When I’m connecting with different people, I am cognizant of coming into a new space as a stranger, too. Especially if I’m not working with someone who fits similar identities. I stick to remaining honest and intentional in building relationships with the community I am working with.

As a researcher, when we fill out bioethics proposals, for example, we really need to think about the communities we are working with and if anything we are proposing could potentially create harm. Sometimes that also includes thinking really hard: If an outsider were to see how we were portraying people, would it be fair in the story (or research) we were trying to do and tell? That takes a lot of reflection and putting yourself into others’ shoes and looking at relationships from many different angles.

In any work I do, I think of the people I’m capturing. Would they be happy with the way they are being portrayed? I try to take a research stance and objectively look at the work.  

On the opposite end, you’ve produced a good amount of work capturing what’s happening in Minneapolis and Minnesota at large. I’m thinking here of pieces in The Wall Street Journal around rural communities, and a National Geographic series on climate change in Minneapolis. When you go out on these shoots, what are you hoping to learn? 

Photo commission work is really interesting. I’m always excited when a photo editor or art director is briefing me on their ideas. It gives me the opportunity to meet people that I would have never met. It gives me exposure to different aspects of life that I might not naturally come across. And that makes it really interesting and fun.  

For one shoot, I spent the day with a mayor who’s trying to get internet access for his town in rural Minnesota. We spent time on his farm: It’s eye opening to get a different perspective on life. I like going to small towns. Going into local diners, you are able to see people with shared collective interests and habits. I’m interested in what brings them together, what they are about. 

I think there is always some point of connection with each person I get to work with. And if not, then you can connect with the sheer interest they have in what they’re sharing. You can see it on their face as they are explaining something, and that’s really special and rewarding for me. It’s a human connection. 

Over the past few years, you’ve created photo projects for some pretty massive commercial and editorial clients: Nike, Apple, Vogue Italia. How did you start working in those high-profile circles?   

Most of the clients I’ve worked with so far have approached me for my work. I think my personal work is helpful to show what kind of a person I am and the way I approach storytelling. I’ve been building a portfolio that shows these types of clients the possibilities of the stories we can tell together.

It’s been such an honor and so fun really to work with clients that I would have only dreamed of years ago. 

You had the opportunity to shoot a commercial for the cash-transfer company WorldRemit featuring Somali superstar Suldaan Seeraar. Can you share a bit more about that experience?

It was a cool moment for me to not only work with him: To those outside of our community, I’d explain it’s kind of like any major Top 40 pop star—and also members of the WorldRemit team. I think as a woman from our community and being the director, it’s kind of an unusual thing. That felt great to have been selected to direct the piece.

What do you think more people should know about photography—and art in general—from Somalia and the Somali diaspora? What are people missing–and I’m thinking here of younger Somali Americans, especially? 

I think it’s important to archive the present. Ultimately, what I’m trying to do is create a visual storybook of the different subgroups that make up the whole of the broader communities and city we live in. Something that you wouldn’t necessarily see in a tourist overview of the city. Can we scratch the surface a little more and find out the patchwork of collectives that are weaving their own stories. And how can I help present that to people who wouldn’t otherwise see these things.

There’s a growing creative community in the Somali diaspora that I’m so excited about. Soomaal House of Art comes to mind as a group that has actively supported my career, but also that of other young artists. There’s Numbi Arts in the U.K., Milk and Myrrh by Ifrah Ahmed here in the U.S., which is introducing people to Somali foods, etc.

There’s a budding Somali filmmaking community too. It feels like the early cusp of a new age of Somali filmmaking. It’s super exciting to see it and hopefully be a part of this new wave as a director and artist. I’m really excited to see where it’s going. 

There’s a new fresh crop of folks that will be able to hopefully provide a library of art and be an inspiration for others to also pursue their own craft. It helps that I think the shift toward art in the diaspora is changing too, I’m meeting more younger folk who are pursuing art full-time, which is something I didn’t really see when I was younger. I’m really stoked about what’s to come.

In addition to your public health work… and your photography… you recently made a documentary film about dhaanto. Can you start by telling people who may not be familiar with it: What is dhaanto? 

Dhaanto is one of the most popular Somali dances, it is a dance that mimics the movements of a camel, which is a very important animal in the culture. It’s the most well-known dance, so I named the film that as kind of a play on how people sometimes talk about Somali dance as being synonymous with the word “dhaanto.” 

But there are many types of dances and the film expands on that. It’s a film showing this team and their coach who we followed for over a year. But also woven through the story is the importance of cultural preservation and generational transference. 

Why did you want to make this doc?

The focus for this short documentary was actually on telling the story of the Somali Museum Dance Troupe. People have seen them dancing at weddings and festivals across the region. They look great, they have high energy—but not many people know who the people behind the performances are. They don’t know how much work and dedication goes into their practice and that they’re truly cultural bearers. 

The idea was initially a photo project, but the idea grew once I talked to the Somali Museum. I didn’t think photos alone would capture the story well. 

To create this documentary, I was very intentional about building a team in which the people behind the camera also reflected the people in front of the camera—with the notion of this not being an extractive experience, but a project that is for the community by the community. The film crew grew to around 20 people: mainly East African, but also a few non-East African artists local to the Twin Cities. I really wanted this to feel locally made.

The power of bringing together all these talented creatives was reflected in the amount of interest the film garnered.  All three screenings across the city were completely packed. It was really rewarding to see that reception.