Dawoud Bey Captures Campus Diversity

originally written for The Emory Wheel: Arts & Living (www.emorywheel.com)

7 February, 2011

Emory’s population is filled with people from all walks of life and all corners of the world. Over the past year, photographer Dawoud Bey has worked to capture the Emory community on camera in an exhibition titled “The Emory Project” on display in the Visual Arts Gallery from Feb. 1 till March 5.

Last spring, while Bey was an artist in residence on campus, he spent four weeks compiling 36 double portraits, each containing two diverse members of the Emory community. The exhibition consists of 20 portraits of 40 people with two contrasting members of the Emory community in every photo. Each piece features two captions; personal statements written by the subjects answering the question, “Who Am I?”

“I think what this does is give a visual representation of the community that is Emory and its diversity,” said Associate Professor of History Leslie Harris. “In that way, it’s a visual record, a permanent record, in photographs that we hope will end up around campus.”

The Emory Visual Arts Department and the Transforming Community Project commissioned the photographs to celebrate the culmination of their five-year exploration of Emory’s historic and current experiences of race, gender, sexuality and other forms of human difference.

One of the most campus-capturing photos in the series features University President James W. Wagner and Carlton Mackey, assistant director at the Ethics Center. Bey cleverly displays two very different facets of Emory’s campus, contrasting the artist and the administrator. Their personal statements reflect this duality. President Wagner’s is authoritative yet reflective, thankful for being “offered the privilege to share this frame with Carlton.”

Mackey, on the other hand, wrote a poem for his caption, ending with his own summary of diversity.

“I am coming to understand the infinite possibilities of what it means to accept the fact that you too are a part of me,” he writes.

Bey also brought his project to the virtual world setting up a website for the project, which features all 36 portraits. A few of the online photos feature recordings of the personal statements read by the subjects. The ability to hear a wide-variety of Emory’s voices adds another diverse dimension to the pieces.