Cast
Artist Leslie Hewitt presents a project using Flash technology that questions the history of an object in the Gallery's collection. By weaving fact and fiction she creates a space for invisible stories to surface and coexist with existing ones.

"Walking into the Yale University Art Gallery Furniture Study, I was transported back in time. On this journey there was no memory of how I, an Afro American woman, have come to exist in the world as American. Somehow, I feel erased from time, from the everyday fragments of life. These thoughts led me to research the collection and ask: Did the acquisition of objects or research styles shift at all during or post Civil Rights (1954–1965)? Did the rupture of the American social fabric at that time create ripples that are visible in the collection to date?
     The beauty of functional objects is in the vast stories each piece contains, from design, fabrication, and use. The layers of stories are there to unfold. Cast is the telling of a timeless narrative; informed by the fluidity of vernacular forms, the imposing certainty of the archive, and the beauty of subjectivity. It is a working archive of personal items found inside a seventeenth-century Bible box once owned by a woman named Peaches." —Leslie Hewitt

Weave your way through Cast by clicking on each image. As you look, audio will accompany your journey.

Launch the project →

Created in collaboration with Eric Shiner, M.A. 2004; Forest Young, graduate student, Yale School of Art; and Scott Hartz, Yale College '05.

Credits: Calvary A.M.E. Zion Church of Jamaica, New York (photography site); Helen G. Hewitt (historical resource); Martha A. Hewitt (historical resource); David Barquist (Yale Furniture Study resource); Wardell Milan (photographer); Rashida Bumbray (audio performance); Phillip Howell (audio technician)





Additional Collaborations:
Gallery Quest: The Unofficial Audio Guide
Jesse Reed's Latent Entry, Potential Stories
What is Otto and Why Does it Matter?
Leslie Hewitt's Cast