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In November 2002, Skillman Library brought photographer Bill Hayward ’65 to campus for what was probably the most unusual photography shoot ever held at Lafayette (see related story). For three days, Hayward provided white paper, black paint, and inspiration to a group of students, faculty, and staff and allowed them to create self-portraits with backdrops of their own design. The results of these collaborations between photographer and subject can be seen in Skillman’s spring photograph exhibit, featuring 15 portraits on display through Wednesday, May 12.
The Lafayette portraits are part of Hayward’s extensive American Memory Project, which has taken him to historical and cultural sites across America, including, most recently, Selma, Ala.; Promontory Point, Utah; and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The project will also include a documentary; Hayward brings along a cameraman to videotape the sessions. Selected photographs from the project and Hayward’s Bad Behavior series are on display in the Williams Center for the Arts lobby through Sunday, May 9.
“The key to the understanding of the portraits,” says Hayward, “is that they are about the subjects defining themselves. All of the words, marks, [and] cut-paper are created and executed by the subjects. I provide the permissions and the direction. Working in collaboration with me, they write, draw, paint, or cut out some truth of their own. Indeed, these portraits are ‘declarations’ of who they are, how they see themselves, of self.”
Hayward returns to Lafayette this week for another three-day residency in conjunction with the Roethke Humanities Festival. He will give a brown-bag talk on the American Memory Project 12:15 p.m. today in Williams Center for the Arts room 108. At 4 p.m., he will mastermind an interactive photo shoot in the Williams Center lobby, billed as “Extreme Theater in the Late Afternoon,” in keeping with the Roethke Festival’s performance art focus. He will continue to make his signature portraits over the next two days in various locations on campus.
His visit is sponsored by Friends of Skillman Library and the Williams Center Gallery. For further information, call Diane Shaw, Special Collections librarian, at x5401 or Michiko Okaya, director of the gallery, at x5361.