Haylee Anne "countermask" MFA Thesis Exhibition

Date and Time

• Thursday, Mar 19, 2026  5pm - 7pm

Location

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Details

Haylee Anne "countermask" MFA Thesis Exhibition: March 9-20 

Performance: Monday, March 9, from 3-5 p.m.

Artist talk: Wednesday, March 11, at 1 p.m.

Receptions: Thursday, March 12, from 5 - 7 pm and Thursday, March 19, from 5 - 7 p.m.

Statement:

countermask investigates fatigue and endurance as complex, embodied states that shape how we remain present in the world. Through nontraditional photographic processes and performance-based methods, the work reframes fatigue not as a secondary symptom of diagnosis, but as a lived condition that resists visibility and calls for new modes of representation.

In the United States, fatigue affects an estimated 45% of the population, shaped by escalating labor demands, inadequate social safety nets, and long-term effects of chronic illness. Despite its prevalence, fatigue is difficult to quantify, visualize, or legitimize. countermask responds to this gap with forms that hold space for exhaustion without requiring performed productivity or recovery.

The making of this work is inherently collaborative and intimate, foregrounding care, consent, and trust with those who are depicted. As direct physical contact is combined with silver-gelatin paper and copper, touch becomes both method and record, registering presence, duration, and the subtle negotiations of energy within the body. By slowing the act of image-making without a traditional camera apparatus, these processes complicate conventional definitions of photography.

Grounded in care and empathy as both ethical commitments and formal strategies, countermask invites you to slow down, witness without judgment, and consider fatigue as a legitimate lived experience.

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Most of the MFA exhibitions will take place at the Welch School Galleries at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design, Art & Humanities Bldg., 10 Peachtree Center Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30303

Please provide ample travel time, as there are street closures and construction by the venue. There is City of Atlanta Park Mobile street parking available on Edgewood, Auburn, Courtland, and other adjacent streets. 

Georgia State parking decks are also open to visitors for a $10 fee. T Deck (43 Auburn Ave NE) is the closest to the Welch School Galleries. but more visitor parking information can be found at parking.gsu.edu.

For those who prefer mass transit, our campus is directly between two MARTA stops, Five Points and Peachtree Center.