"Art is my life and when I have something to say, all that I'm interested in comes through in my art.
Early Life and Education
Born September 3, 1945, at the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona to Tomio and Sakae Hayashi, both of Japanese descent, Masumi's life and work were deeply influenced by her family's history. She was the fourth of six children, born into the Japanese American internment system that would later become the subject of her most significant artistic work.
Her awareness of being a woman, a Japanese American, and a Buddhist in a largely Christian, white, male-dominated land shaped both her artistic vision and her choice of subject matter.
Education
- 1976-77 MFA, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Began experimenting with photographic collage techniques - 1985 Post-college Certification, Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Computer graphics with honors
Teaching Career
In fall 1982, Professor Hayashi joined the faculty at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she taught photography for over twenty-two years. Her dedication to education was matched by her commitment to expanding the field—she continually incorporated new digital technologies into her teaching curriculum while maintaining her own analog artistic practice.
Artistic Evolution
Early Work: Photomosaics (1980-1985)
By 1980, Hayashi had turned to electrostatic printing as her principal medium, using color photocopiers to produce still lifes composed of lushly patterned fabrics, found objects, and images from popular culture and art history. These "photomosaics" ranged from 16 x 20 inches to 30 x 40 inches and incorporated airbrushing with acrylic paint.
Her use of grid structures and the practice of imaging on a copier provided "a space for thinking sequentially about the construction of multifaceted pieces," establishing the foundation for her later panoramic works.
Breakthrough: Panoramic Photo Collages (1985-2006)
In 1985, during a week-long residency at the Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Hayashi photographed a building interior by pivoting her camera through multiple frames—the first time she employed this technique. Returning to Cleveland, she began applying the method to document the city's abandoned factories and steel mills.
The Panoramic Technique
Her technique involved setting a 50mm focal length lens on a 35mm Nikon camera at eye level (approximately five feet) and systematically photographing in a 360-degree rotation, moving the camera twenty degrees with each shot. She would capture multiple vertical levels above and below the horizon line, consuming three to five rolls of film (108-180 exposures) per location.
Each final collage comprised around 100 borderless prints (3.5 x 5 or 4 x 6 inches) assembled into a grid pattern with slight overlaps and spacing variations.
A Visual Journey Through Her Major Series
Industrial Excess Landfill, Uniontown, Ohio
Heart Mountain, Blue Room, Wyoming
Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio
Golden Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal
Major Series
Post-Industrial Landscapes (1986-1990s)
Hayashi's first panoramic series documented Cleveland's Powerhouse (an abandoned 1892 power plant), steel mills in Youngstown, and other symbols of economic decline in the Rust Belt. These works meant "to be appreciated for their beauty on one level yet, on another, to create irony and tension."
EPA Superfund Sites (1990s)
Expanding her exploration of environmental and societal issues, Hayashi photographed toxic waste sites across Ohio designated for cleanup by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Japanese American Internment Camps (1990-2006)
Hayashi's most significant body of work documented the ruins of relocation camps where 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. As a sansei (third-generation Japanese American) born at Gila River, she brought personal connection and historical awareness to this project.
The work began in 1990 and evolved to include audio interviews with internees, family album snapshots, and eventually photo collage portraits of survivors.
Sacred Architectures (1999-2006)
During the final decade of her life, Hayashi explored a new direction—Asian temples and sites of ancestral worship. Her first photographic journey to India was funded by an Ohio Arts Council fellowship in 1999, followed by a 2003 Fulbright research fellowship. This series raised her work to "a spiritual, healing plane."
Recognition and Exhibitions
Major Museum Exhibitions
- • International Center for Photography, New York
- • Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- • Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles (2003 retrospective)
- • Tokyo Museum of Photography
- • Ludwig Museum of Art, Germany
- • Victoria and Albert Museum of Photography, London
- • Cleveland Museum of Art
Publications
- • Doubletake (Fall 1997)
- • Aperture: Beyond Wilderness (Fall 1990)
- • Mother Jones (April 1995)
- • Creative Camera (1993, London)
- • Die Zeit (1999, Germany)
Legacy
Masumi Hayashi died October 15, 2006. Her website, The Masumi Hayashi Museum (masumimuseum.com), includes over 177 images of her work. The Masumi Hayashi Foundation continues to preserve and promote her artistic legacy.
Through her art, Hayashi awakened people "gently but insistently to societal ills," applying "photography's most seductive traits—believability and formal beauty—to explore disturbing subjects." Her panoramic photo collages stand as permanent visual records of places that represent both trauma and resilience in American and world history.