Joint photo exhibit in Stockton and sister city Parma, Italy aims to spread kindness

Clifford Oto, The Record
·2 min read

Diana Lowery hopes to lift the spirits of the people of Stockton and those of the city half a world away.

You may know Lowery from her stint on the Stockton city council from 2009 to 2012. She is perhaps more widely known for being the water conservation activist Sally Savewater which she began in 1990. She is currently the president of the nonprofit Stockton Sister Cities Association and the chairperson of the association’s partnership with Parma, Italy.

Diana Lowery holds up a U.S. flag and a Stockton Sister Cities Association flag. She has been the President of the Stockton Sister Cities Association and Chairperson of the Stockton Sister Cities Association Stockton, Ca./Parma, Italy Projects since 1998.
Diana Lowery holds up a U.S. flag and a Stockton Sister Cities Association flag. She has been the President of the Stockton Sister Cities Association and Chairperson of the Stockton Sister Cities Association Stockton, Ca./Parma, Italy Projects since 1998.

On a visit to Parma last year, Lowery and her Italian counterparts devised an idea to have a joint photography exhibit of pictures taken by each city’s residents. The theme is ‘Kindness Can Change The World…And It Costs Nothing.’ They want people to send images of acts of kindness from their respective cities. “The desire is for our community to contribute photographs of acts of kindness without any words,” says Lowery. “The idea is for the Parma sister city people also to submit acts of kindness that they photograph, again without words. It also helps express our sister city friendship that photographs should speak for themselves. It’s not a contest. There’s no ‘winner’ in this. That’s not the objective at all. We want this just to be an exchange of expression.”

Lowery is planning for the show to coincide with the week-long 25th-anniversary celebration of Parma’s partnership with Stockton in September.

Lowery is still working out the details and soliciting ideas for the project. “We’re looking for a good amount of photos, but we don’t know how many we’ll get. We want to have at least 20 photographs in the exhibit. The rest will be virtually shown (in a slide show) then. You can access an entry form at the SSCA’s website ( https://tinyurl.com/mr28nm5p ). The time frame to enter is from May 1 to July 31 of 2023. A maximum of 3 images per person are allowed.

Tim Ulmer of UlmerPhoto in Stockton has agreed to print the photos. Some details have been solidly worked out. The gallery display is slated for Sept. 19 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the lobby of Stockton City Hall. And on Sept. 22, they will also be displayed at the week-ending gala at the Port of Stockton’s Lindley House, where they will be used as auction items.

“I want Stocktonians to visualize that we have so many acts of kindness during the day. We do. I think we can all personally think of someone polite to us or an act of kindness that occurs that may have just slipped by our minds at first. I think if we can see photographs of them collectively, it will make an impression.”

Record photographer Clifford Oto has photographed Stockton and San Joaquin County for over 38 years. He can be reached at coto@recordnet.com. To support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Images of kindness to unite Stockton and sister city Parma, Italy