Everybody who is anybody in Hartford will be at The Bushnell on Thursday night, April 27, at the opening reception of “Pivotal: Faces of Change: Hartford.” If they can’t make it in person, they’ll be there in spirit, they’ll be hanging on the walls and they’ll live inside everyone’s cellphones.
This portrait exhibit by photographer Ruedi Hofmann showcases dozens of changemakers in the city, people who are moving Hartford into the future: artists, activists, historical preservationists, charitable volunteers, men and women of the cloth, politicians, groundbreaking businesspeople, educators, police officers, attorneys, comedians, even Joe the Barber from Bushnell Park.
Each of the approximately 75 portraits is beautifully composed in black-and-white against a white background. In addition, each photo has an intriguing cyber-component, courtesy of the free app Live Portrait. By pointing a cellphone at each portrait, a short video about that person or group will play. The portrait subjects move, jump on a trampoline, blow bubbles, laugh, play music, break-dance, tell their stories about what they envision in the community. For visitors to the exhibit who don’t know everybody, the videos identify who they are looking at.
“With the video, it’s almost like you’re getting an introduction to these people,” Hofmann said. “It goes beyond a still. You get movement, sound, music. You get a sense that they’re turning to you, they’re speaking to you.”
The subjects are wide-ranging: Katherine Kane, executive director of Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, restaurateur Rich Rosenthal, Khaiim Kelly “the RapOet,” the goofballs of Sea Tea Improv, the people behind Hartford Denim Company, Hog River Brewing, Foster Buddies Network, Breakdancing Shakespeare and the Hartford Catholic Worker, Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney, The Hartford Hot Several, students of Grace Academy, Anti-gang activist Iran Nazario, Connecticut Forum founders Richard and Doris Sugarman, the “saints” of Hartford Area Habitat for Humanity gathered around their leader, Karraine Moody, Cynthia Bulaong, who organizes Open Studio Hartford, among many artists who participate; Rex Fowler of the Hartford Community Loan Fund, Baker Gordon Scott, munching on one of his Jamaican beef patties.
In his video, police officer and combat veteran Jim Barrett jumps and waves his nightstick. “My passion is working with homeless vets. … It’s not just me. We have so many different officers in our department. None of us want the credit because it’s what we do.”
Jaleith Gary, the director of philanthropy for Urban Alliance, describes her motivation. “I am the kind of person who needs to be immersed in my work. … It needs to be a part of whom I am, my ethos, my soul.”
Hofmann said that the “Pivotal” project isn’t about one person. “It isn’t about ‘should I put up the mayor, or should I put up Chion Wolf?'” he said. “It’s about a mass of people, many not so well-known by the larger community, who are bringing things of change.”
Hofmann’s first “Pivotal” project was done in Newburgh, N.Y., where he lives. “I saw these two old people picking up trash. I thought, what are people doing to change perceptions of how people view the street, to make them want to buy a house, to make it acceptable to live in?” he said. “If they’re doing it, who else is doing it? We often take what is presented to us as a given. But I began to wonder, why is something the way it is?”
Hofmann photographed and video-recorded dozens of Newburgh changemakers. One of them was Tricia Haggerty Wenz, founder of Safe Harbors, a housing and arts redevelopment project. “These portraits all bring out people’s personalities in different ways,” Haggerty Wenz said.
Haggerty Wenz later moved to the Hartford area and is now co-curator of The Golden Thread Gallery at the Holy Family Passionist Retreat Center in West Hartford. She and her Golden Thread co-curator Kate Wilson lured Hofmann to Hartford to do a “Pivotal” project here, too, and did the preliminary research about whom to include.
Wilson and Haggerty Wenz say the $60,000 budget for “Pivotal: Faces of Change: Hartford” was financed through a grant from Connecticut Humanities as well as private donations. The largest private donors to the project were Thomas McGowan of West Hartford — who is both Haggerty Wenz’s and Wilson’s brother-in-law — and McGowan’s wife, Mary. Tragically, Thomas McGowan died of cancer on Easter Sunday.
Visitors to the gallery should download the Live Portrait app before they arrive. Along with the exhibit and the mini-videos in the Live Portrait app, the opening reception will include a film that combines all of the mini-videos. A companion book of all the portraits will be sold. After the project is launched, the Hartford portraits will be posted on pivotalfoundation.com. The Live Portrait app can be used with the book and the website portraits as well.
PIVOTAL: FACES OF CHANGE: HARTFORD will be at The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Ave. in Hartford, until May 25. The opening reception is Thursday, April 27, starting at 6 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. At other times, the exhibit can be viewed while at The Bushnell to see a show. ruedihofmann.com.
