Who We Are

Judy Byron was selected by the North Carolina Arts Commission's Artworks in State Buildings Program to create a series of pieces for the Tate-Turner-Kuralt School of Social Work. Byron created a collection of twelve hand-colored woodcut prints, collectively titled "Who We Are." The images are based on photographs of individuals she interviewed and photographed across North Carolina. The prints hang in the main lobbies of all five stories of the building, mostly in pairs, side by side or across from each other. Since each print appears several times throughout the building, and is paired with a different companion in each location, the viewer is invited to contemplate the various juxtapositions of age, gender, race, and occupation suggested in the portraits. Byron explicitly underlines this intent with wall plaques in each lobby that ask, "Who are these people? Who are they to each other? Who are they to you?"