(Gila River, Arizona, 1945 - 2006, Cleveland, Ohio)
1995
Panoramic collage of chromogenic prints
33 3/4 x 43 1/2 in. (85.9 x 110.5 cm)
Collection of the Akron Art Museum
Gift of the estate of Joan E. Baker
2013.9
© Masumi Hayashi
A highly innovative photographer, Hayashi’s panoramic photo collages subvert the tradition of the panoramic photograph, which was historically used to document tourist attractions and dramatic landscapes. Hayashi’s collages transcend the instantaneity of photography. They fragment space by combining up to 100 still photos into a single, unified image. Through technique and subject matter, she suggests that perspective is relative: our understanding of a place depends literally and figuratively on point of view. Roman Baths belongs to a series of photo-collages called City Works, created throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, in which Hayashi pictured civic structures and parks that functioned as sites of entertainment, recreation, commerce and transportation.