Linda Foster, Artist

The second window. The text on the blue carpet is shadow.

The window alcove on a sunny day. All thirty-six languages are cast as shadows on the carpet.

The orange soffit and quote from Hamlet are part of the installation, and visible from across the room.

Detail of the text above the windows.

The first window with nine translations of “word” cast as shadow.

Detail of the first window.

The second window.

The second window during the installation of the vinyl lettering. As the transfer paper was pulled away, shadows from the vinyl, now adhered to the window, were cast on the paper.

The third window with nine more translations of “word.”

It was a rainy day, so there were no cast shadows. The juxtaposition of the text with the campus below is another experience of the artwork.

Another detail of the third window.

The fourth window with the last nine translations.

Artist’s signature and the date of completion are also shadows.

The four windows viewed from the outside of the library at ground level looking up. The installation is on the third floor of the library.

Hamlet: A cast of shadows

Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut, 2009 Vinyl Text installed on four, west facing windows, each measures 6 x 6 feet Three dimensional commercial text on the soffit above

The project was inspired by dialogue from Act II of Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, and the two relevant lines are installed on the wall above the windows.

Polonius: What do you read my lord?

Hamlet: Words, words, words.

One important component of the installation project was translating the word “words” into languages represented on the University of Connecticut’s campus. An informal survey was conducted, and 36 languages were selected, in part because of their distinctive alphabets and characters. Translations of the languages were then cut from vinyl sign material, and affixed to the bottom of four west-facing windows located in an alcove where students often sit to study.

The artwork “performs” as the sun casts shadows of the languages on the floor of the alcove below the windows, shifting in position, size, and clarity with the time of day and seasons of the year.

Shadows live deep in our collective memory of experiences in the natural world as they inform us of time, space, and form. Architecture, stagecraft and every kind of visual art exploit the capacity of shadows to create illusion, accentuate or minimize. Without shadow, all would be flat.

Shadows are also metaphor and symbolism in our religious texts, prose and poetry: Peter Pan; Plato’s Allegory of the Cave; Psalm Twenty-Three; Carl Jung’s id.

The installation broadens the meaning of the 36 translations of “word” as they are both cast as shadow and become a cast of characters — unlikely players on a small stage in a study alcove in Babbidge Library.

Libraries are the quintessential repository of words, giving the installation, Hamlet: A cast of shadows, a significant relationship to the library building itself, and its setting in the larger context if the university campus.

Norman Stevens, Director Emeritus of Libraries, approached me about doing an installation for the library, and was instrumental in selecting a site with strong sunlight. He also secured funding for the project, introduced me to a competent sign company, and arranged the timing of the installation. As the project progressed, he became very excited about the nuances of meanings, and we had a lively email discussion about the title for the work, and other details. I remember him confessing that it even kept him up a few nights. He truly is the reason this work exists, and I am ever grateful.

Production Team | Assistance

Anita Gold, Artfx Signs: Fabrication and installation

Dr. Keith Slater, Linguist: Language consultation

Numerous UCSB Students: Who were willing to translate

Art Installation Speaks Volumes at Homer Babbidge Library by Suzanne Zack See page 3