Chloe Chidester
In Motion Staff Writer
Picture a bird flying high in the sky. Wings spread, feathers fluttering and adjusting perfectly to the wind it seems to be riding.
A bird in America symbolizes freedom, justice and hope. Now imagine a cage around that flying bird. All of a sudden, this powerful creature is trapped — still flying, but going nowhere. Do you think “freedom” when you look at it now, or are you envisioning the bird flying full force into the side of its cage, falling broken and beaten to the bottom, all signs of life gone from its eyes?
Daytona State College photography professor Jayanti Seiler’s installation “Of One and the Other” in the Southeast Museum of Photography’s Faculty Focus exhibition features a similar photo. One of a bird flying toward the camera, looking free and happy as can be in a large wooden room. The theme of Seiler’s exhibit begs you to stop and consider your furry, feathery, and scaly neighbors in a new light. Not as game, entertainment, or food, but as companions.
As you follow the path of her photographs, each untitled picture forces you to imagine the story behind it. From the man sharing a mournful moment with the head of a stag to the white tiger trapped in a tiny glass cage, Jayanti Seiler begs us to stand up and speak for those who have no voices.
Meanwhile, University of Central Florida associate professor Laine Wyatt speaks for the people who have voices, but don’t know how to use them. Her exhibit, “Obsessions, Curiosities, and Fancies,” is broken into five categories, each one representing a different part of her life. Her work in her “Interiors” stage stresses the beauty of everyday life; the barber’s chair, your favorite restaurant and your own living room. People forget to look at their everyday surroundings because they’re always looking for the next new and exciting thing. As Wyatt explained in her artist’s talk last month, “There’s a theatrical ordinariness in them — especially when they’re devoid of people.”
Notably smaller than the other four stages, “Physiology” is different in another way. Instead of being composed purely of photographs, Wyatt employed the use of woodworking. She formed parts of the body out of wood, crafted them into boxes and exposed their insides to show symbols of magic and melancholy throughout life. With these peculiar shapes on the wall, she wanted to physically show the emotions that inhabit and “iconize” the body. This leaves much of the exhibit to personal interpretation.
“On Longing” is an inside view into the mind of a woman going through a peculiar artistic journey, always looking for a sign. “Time just seemed to stop,” Wyatt told the audience at her Sept. 3 reception. “Everything felt right.”
The “Obsessions/Compulsions” branch of photography features clothing, more clothing and a sock tree (the mystery is solved: she used a cherry picker). It becomes clear as you go further down the line of photographs that Wyatt is commenting on our — specifically women’s — obsession with clothing.
Finally, through Wyatt’s photos in “The Fair,” we discover her disdain for the depiction of women in art, who she describes in an interesting way.
“Women are depicted around this fair as seeming diabolical and scary, taking on the forms of various monsters and evil creatures sent forth to prey upon the world.” Wyatt said.
Southeast Museum of Photography employee Suzanne Von Hacht believes that Wyatt is trying to expose society’s tendency to morph women into over-sexualized creatures.
“This has been happening for hundreds of years, but it’s only now that we see things like that and say, no,” Von Hacht said.
All in all, visitors left the exhibit with a lot of questions and maybe a little depressed at the state of the world, too. But at least it opened their eyes.
“Faculty Focus” closed at the SMP on Sept. 21. On view now through Dec. 12 is “The Growth of a Collection, Part 1: 1981-2001,” which helps celebrate the upcoming Alumni Reunion celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Photography Program and the 35th year anniversary of the Southeast Museum of Photography.
In honor of the roots and early history of the permanent collection of the Southeast Museum of Photography, the new exhibit highlights the first 20 years of the collection. It begins with acquisitions by what was then Daytona Beach Community College’s Gallery of Fine Arts in 1981 and ends with collected pieces from 2001. The SMP is located in the Mori Hosseini Center, Building 1200.