Walter Hood, Paul Mellon Distinguished Fellow Lecture 2023

Architect, Artist, and Professor Walter Hood gives a lecture at Skowhegan. Some of the themes Hood speaks about in his lecture are the conceptual and physical ways in which he has interrogated ideas around the landscape, how to give landscape meaning and representation, and his attempt to recover things that are often in plain sight. Hood reflects on how his training as a professor, architect, and artist gives him the courage to make work that deals with justice, memory, and history. Hood then begins to speak about the concept of ethno-autobiography, and how for him it is a way to think about his presence on earth as research, and how his story can influence decisions that he makes. Hood also reflects on the role monuments play in our lives, and how societies often build moments to make sure certain historical events don’t ever take place again. Hood states that this reflection on monuments has made him contemplate how we can learn to witness something even if we don’t understand it. Hood ends his lecture by telling the participants that as they continue to change and grow, their work will also change and grow together for the better, in ways that they can’t even begin to anticipate.