William Stoehr
The Faces We Carry - The Art of Seeing
A collaboration featuring William Stoehr and Off Broadway Arts at Pine Street Church
with curator Waverly Matthews.
The Faces We Carry asks visitors to consider a deceptively simple question:
When we look at another person, what do we see and what do we bring to that act of seeing?
We construct stories about people before we know their stories. At a festival devoted to storytelling, The Faces We Carry explores what happens before a story is told.
The installation transforms a vacant Boulder storefront into an immersive experiment in seeing. Large-scale paintings and digital-hybrid portraits surround visitors with faces whose expressions and stories remain deliberately ambiguous. Through Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), public discussion and an evolving response wall, visitors are invited to look, interpret, respond and reconsider what they thought they saw.
Blurring boundaries between painting, digital media, installation, neuroscience and social practice, the project explores how perception shapes identity, empathy and stigma. The faces remain unresolved, inviting viewers to complete them through their own memories, expectations and experiences.
The viewer becomes part of the medium.
The B-Sides idea: outside the frame
B-Sides celebrates what exists outside the main frame. The Faces We Carry asks what happens when we look outside our own frame to the people we overlook, categorize or believe we understand before knowing their stories.
The project grew from William Stoehr’s Art for Hope initiative addressing stigma surrounding substance use disorder and associated mental health issues, but the experience begins with something much more universal: how we see another human being and the assumptions we make, the biases we carry and the stories we construct.
Why this belongs at Sundance
Film and The Faces We Carry both concern human stories but they approach storytelling from opposite directions.
Film typically gives us narrative, character and context. These portraits deliberately withhold them. The viewer supplies the story.
Before knowing anything about the person before us, we may already be constructing a narrative based upon expression, appearance and our own memories and experiences.
What viewers experience
The portraits themselves provide few answers. Expressions are intentionally ambiguous. Stories are withheld. Viewers bring their own memory, emotion, experience and assumption to what they see.
Visitors first encounter Stoehr’s seven-foot original portrait paintings. Their scale, direct gaze and physical presence create an immediate face-to-face encounter.
As visitors move farther into the space, the experience changes. Digital-hybrid portraits hang along the temporary side walls.
The density of the portraits is intentional.
One face invites us to consider an individual. Many faces surrounding us suggest something larger: the experiences of individuals, families, friends, caregivers and communities are interconnected.
As visitors move through the installation, they encounter face after face. There is no single story and no single way of seeing.
The accumulation of faces challenges the tendency to associate stigmatized conditions such as substance use disorder, mental illness and HIV/AIDS with “other people”and asks us to recognize how deeply these experiences touch all of our communities.
One face is someone’s story.
Many faces are many people’s stories.
Together, they become our story.
The movement is from “them” to “us.”
The installation then shifts from viewing to participation.
Using principles of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) visitors are invited to spend time with individual portraits and consider:
What’s going on in this image?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What more can we find?
Rather than immediately explaining the portraits, the installation allows visitors to form their own interpretations first.
Visitors are then invited to voluntarily contribute observations to large public response whiteboards.
Near the conclusion of the experience, visitors encounter another question:
What assumptions did you bring to what you saw?
As responses accumulate throughout Sundance, the wall becomes part of the installation - a collective record demonstrating how people can experience the same faces.
The deeper social purpose
The Faces We Carry grew from Stoehr’s years of using art to confront stigma surrounding substance use disorder and mental health.
The portraits, however, are not illustrations of “people with a stigmatized condition.” They intentionally resist categorization. That distinction is central to the project.
The question is not, for instance:
Who among these people has a substance use disorder?
The question is:
Why do we think we can tell?
By asking visitors to look and interpret before providing context, the installation creates an opportunity to recognize the assumptions and biases they may bring to an encounter with another person.
The installation does not prescribe what visitors should feel, nor does it claim that encountering art alone will reduce stigma. Instead, it makes our interpretations visible and discussable. Through the portraits, VTS conversations and the collective responses, the project creates an opportunity to encounter different ways of seeing, question initial assumptions and normalize conversations about experiences too often associated with “other people.”
Ultimately, the project asks whether looking more carefully might change the way we see another person.
A modular pop-up installation
The installation is specifically designed to be adaptable to the architecture and dimensions of the vacant commercial space made available by the program.
Two or four large portraits and an 85 inch digital monitor would establish the experience near the entrance. Beyond them, a flexible number (16 - 24) of 28x28 inch portraits would be arranged an temporary side walls. The number of portraits can expand or contract according to the available space.
The response whiteboards, VTS prompts, artist information and programming can similarly be adapted to the space along the back wall.
This allows The Faces We Carry to easily transform a commercial environment into a temporary immersive art experience rather than requiring the environment to conform to the exhibition.
The installation is intentionally modular and can be adapted to spaces ranging from smaller storefronts to substantially larger commercial spaces. The number of large paintings, illuminated portraits and temporary display walls can expand or contract according to the space available.
A larger space, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, would allow the installation to achieve its fullest immersive configuration and accommodate additional programming, but is not required for the project to succeed.
Temporary freestanding walls on wheels will be used to display portraits. They require no attachment to existing walls or floors and can be removed cleanly at the conclusion of the exhibition. They can also be configured to define the exhibition area within a space larger than required.
Here is a possible floor plan featuring six double-sided portrait walls holding 24 portraits on the front and back sides.
Programming, activation and participation
Throughout the activation, ongoing facilitated VTS sessions with Waverly Matthews and discussions with William Stoehr can transform the installation from a contemplative visual environment into a lively gathering place for conversation and exchange.
The visitor response whiteboards change every day as new observations accumulate, meaning that someone returning to the installation later in the festival encounters a different collective conversation.
Where the storefront configuration permits, illuminated portraits and monitor could also remain visible through the windows after hours, extending the installation into the street and creating a visual presence during Sundance evenings.
The Faces We Carry - The Art of Seeing is designed to be immediately accessible to both Boulder residents and international visitors. No prior knowledge of contemporary art, visual perception or the issues underlying the work is required.
The experience begins with something universal: looking at another human face. Large-scale paintings and portraits create an immediate visual encounter, while a simple question,“When we look at another person, what do we see and what do we bring to that act of seeing?”, provides an entry point that can cross differences in age, culture, language and familiarity with art. Visitors can spend a few minutes with the installation or engage more deeply through conversation, Visual Thinking Strategies and supporting exhibition materials.
Most importantly, visitors are invited to become participants rather than spectators. Through facilitated discussions and the public response wall, they can add their own observations and perspectives to the installation and encounter those left by others.
The Faces We Carry - The Art of Seeing centers people rather than categories. The portraits depict women and men of different races and backgrounds, presented at the same scale and with the same visual intensity. Their stories are intentionally left ambiguous, asking visitors to confront how quickly we construct assumptions about another person based on appearance, identity and our own experience.
Community participation is an essential part of the activation. Through Visual Thinking Strategies, facilitated conversations and an evolving public response wall, visitors are invited not simply to view the work but to contribute their own observations, interpretations and experiences.
Item for sale
A complete exhibition catalog featuring the portraits, information about the project and an introduction to Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), including the VTS questions used in the installation, will be available for purchase for $5.00.
Community partnership and feasibility
The Faces We Carry - The Art of Seeing is a partnership between Off Broadway Arts at Pine Street Church with curator Waverley Matthews and artist William Stoehr.
This partnership roots the project within Boulder’s arts community while providing the practical support necessary for sustained public activation throughout the festival.
Stoehr has extensive experience creating large-scale art installations in galleries, universities, healthcare institutions and other public and non-traditional environments.
Stoehr also has substantial experience creating pop-up exhibitions, transforming nontraditional spaces including a warehouse, a church and an entire Pearl Street retail space into temporary galleries.
His projects have included collaborations and exhibitions involving the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, the University of Wisconsin Stout and other healthcare and educational institutions.
Stoehr’s existing body of large paintings and digital-hybrid images means that B-Sides funding can be directed primarily toward creating the experience.
Off Broadway Arts at Pine Street Church with curator Waverly Matthews, brings substantial experience producing multidisciplinary arts experiences that combine visual art, theater, music, education and community engagement. Its capabilities include theatrical production, artist coordination, installation, lighting, sound, staging, audience management and public programming, as well as transforming nontraditional spaces into engaging environments that encourage participation and dialogue.
Off Broadway Arts has previously collaborated with William Stoehr on programming combining his artwork with discussions of mental health. For The Faces We Carry - The Art of Seeing, it would serve as an experienced Boulder-based production and community partner, assisting with planning, installation and deinstallation, staffing, visitor engagement and public programming throughout the festival.
Attendance and Operations
The installation will operate within the B-Sides maximum occupancy requirement of 49 visitors at any one time. Off Broadway Arts staffing will assist with visitor flow, engagement and occupancy management during peak periods.
Visitor impact and evaluation
The objective is not to tell visitors what they should see or feel.
It is to create circumstances in which they can become more conscious of how they see and how biases and assumptions may influence their judgements..
Visual Thinking Strategies encourages close observation and asks participants to identify the visual evidence supporting their interpretations.
Project evaluation will combine quantitative measures, including estimated attendance, participation in scheduled programming, response-whiteboard wall participation and sales, with qualitative visitor responses collected through the installation.
The evolving response boards will provide an anonymous record of how visitors interpret the portraits and whether their interpretations change after engaging with the project. The partnership between Stoehr and Off Broadway Arts will also provide a model for documenting new and strengthened local arts collaborations.
We do not to claim that the installation itself will reduce stigma. Instead, we believe that it normalizes the discussion and creates an opportunity for visitors to recognize assumptions, encounter alternative interpretations and reflect on their responses.
Budget
Stoehr will provide the original paintings, 85”monitor, and digital-hybrid portrait files as an in-kind contribution. The $7,000 grant request can therefore be directed primarily toward creating and operating the public experience.
Temporary freestanding exhibition walls
Graphics on foam board for short-term use
Temporary visitor-response whitewall
Lighting and miscellaneous electrical needs.
Signage
Visitor take away materials
Transportation and handling
Insurance, permit fees and other applicable fees
Off Broadway Arts staffing/production support
Central proposition
We construct stories about people before we know their stories.
The Faces We Carry - The Art of Seeing transforms a vacant Boulder storefront into a temporary laboratory for seeing.
Large portraits meet visitors as they enter. Illuminated faces surround them. Visual Thinking Strategies invites them to look more carefully. Public response boards record their interpretations and reveal how differently people can experience the same faces.
Finally, another question turns the experience back toward the viewer:
What did you bring to what you saw?
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) — Summary
Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a structured, discussion-based method for looking closely at visual art. It uses open-ended questions to help participants observe carefully, articulate what they see, support interpretations with visual evidence, listen to others and reconsider their initial assumptions.
Rather than telling viewers what an artwork means, VTS asks three core questions:
What’s going on in this picture?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What more can we find?
For The Faces We Carry, these questions are followed by an additional reflective question:
What assumptions or biases did you bring to what you saw?
Why VTS matters
VTS makes the process of interpretation visible. Participants discover that people can look at the same image, notice different things and construct different stories from what they see. It encourages them to distinguish between what they observe and what they infer.
This is particularly relevant to Stoehr’s ambiguous portraits. The same practices involved in looking closely at art - careful observation, tolerance of uncertainty, evidence-based interpretation, awareness of assumptions and consideration of alternative perspectives - can also inform how we encounter other people.
For The Faces We Carry, the process becomes:
Look. Interpret. Explain what you see. Listen to what others see. Then look again.
The final step is essential. The portraits intentionally withhold identity, circumstances and narrative, yet viewers may begin constructing stories about the people they see. VTS provides a way to slow that process down and examine it.
The installation then asks visitors to turn the act of seeing back on themselves:
What did you bring to what you saw?
About Off Broadway Arts at Pine Street Church
Off Broadway Arts at Pine Street Church’s stated purpose is to use visual and performing arts to foster creativity, reflection, personal growth and community dialogue. Pine Street Church describes the program as seeking to “expand consciousness, creativity, and wisdom through vital experiences with the arts.”
They connect art with difficult social and health issues which is particularly relevant to Stoehr’s work. The function as a community arts laboratory where exhibitions, theater, music, education, and social issues can intersect.
About William Stoehr
William Stoehr’s art explores substance use disorder along with related conditions and stigma. Stigma is a barrier to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery. Stigma alters how we see ourselves and how we are seen. The faces he paints represent all those affected.
Exhibited internationally at universities, art centers, museums and galleries, he has participated in more than 120 exhibits including more than 30 one-person exhibitions and has been recognized many times including several best of show awards.
His art and mission have received considerable national and international media coverage including NPR Morning Edition, NPR Atlanta City Lights, ABC/Scripps and the Associated Press plus many more publications, TV broadcasts, podcasts and interviews.
About the art
Stoehr’s digital-hybrid paintings blur the boundaries between traditional painting, drawing, photography and digital media. Each begins with a high-resolution image repurposed from one of his own unfinished acrylic-on-canvas paintings. Working on an iPad and in Photoshop, he draws, layers, masks, erases and manipulates the image, transforming the original painting into an entirely new work created by his hand.
The finished works move freely between media - displayed as illuminated images, projected at architectural scale, or printed on aluminum and other surfaces - challenging distinctions between painting, photography, digital image and installation.
The work connects the basic theory behind Cubism with the science of visual perception. Stoehr begins with the idea that seeing is an act of construction: the brain interprets what we see through memory, expectation, emotion and experience. By leaving the human face fragmented and unresolved, he asks viewers to complete it themselves.
The viewer becomes part of the medium.