By Birdie Wells and Emily Hawxwell
William Peace University senior and Interdisciplinary Arts major Nolan Smock is digging into the school’s past this semester with an experimental art installation inspired by its century-old Lotus yearbooks.
The project will combine photography and projections to be set up inside Kenan Hall. At its center will be a stage-mounted photo booth where current students can be photographed layered with archival images of alumni drawn from the yearbooks.
Smock said the goal is to “connect current students to the past in an engaging, maybe spectral way,” tapping into what he called the “ethereal nature” of old photographs.
“I get hyper-focused on archives, and I love digging through old materials, photos, records, books, comics that inspire me,” Smock stated. “When I first started at Peace in spring 2024, I was drawn to the Lotus yearbooks by their beautiful designs. I had just finished a project on Raleigh photographer Albert Barden’s archive, and the yearbooks felt like another collection worth diving into.”
The installation will function as a gallery art exhibit and a multimedia AV experience, where Smock has images of peace on old TVs and projectors. Images from peace yearbooks throughout the years will be hung on the walls, accompanied by audio from around campus and music by Smock.
“I think the most important part of it is that this is an experience that the viewer will have that really encapsulates all the history,” said professor Roger Christman. “There’ll be images from the 1910s to all the way up to the 2010s that he has curated to help tell the story and for people to experience peace and all of its history. It’s extensive, and it’s wonderful, and we should continue to celebrate it.”
Smock’s curiosity grew after conversations with university library staff members who have long hoped to digitize the school’s photo archive, but limited equipment has brought a slow pace to the project. Smock, who is pursuing a directed study in advanced photography with Christman, saw an opportunity.
“Christman and I had talked about doing a show of my personal work,” Smock said. “But something about creating a project for Peace itself felt right.”
As a commuter student, Smock had found, like many, that connections on campus can be difficult to cultivate. But after combing through more than 100 years of Lotus yearbooks, sometimes multiple times a week, Smock said the campus began to feel different.
“There’s a lot of history here,” he said. “I’d already written some papers on women’s history, and the Lotus books deepened my connection to that aspect of the school as well. I came back to campus feeling part of something beyond the physical.”
The installation will draw on the aesthetics and performance of early “spirit photography,” a genre that flourished after the Civil War when grieving families sought visual proof of loved ones in the afterlife. Projections, mirrors, and layered imagery will echo those techniques while raising questions about what it means to look backward and forward at once.
“The Lotus yearbooks even had a section called ‘Prophecies’ for decades, where students predicted what the next 10 years of their lives would look like,” Smock said. “Reading those now, knowing how their futures really unfolded, is heavy. It makes me think of all our futures.”
This will be Smock’s first installation in a long time, but not their first immersive project. With a background in both visual art and music, Smock has staged work in nontraditional spaces including Victorian mansions, abandoned buildings, churches, and record stores.
“I’ve shown in galleries and played bigger concerts, but a lot of my work is based around what I call ‘necrotic spaces’, places alive with memory but no longer serving their original purpose,” Smock said. “Kenan Hall felt natural for that reason. It’s still used for events, but since the theater department folded into the interdisciplinary arts program, it carries that sense of absence.”
The installation will be temporary, up for only two hours, but Smock hopes its impact lingers. Visitors will be able to take pictures of themselves or have Polaroids taken of them on stage at the event. A poster with a mosaic of photos will be available for free at the event, extending the show’s reach beyond the walls of Kenan Hall.
“The temporary nature of the exhibit is reflective of our time here as students,” Smock said. “Art has always been therapeutic for me, and this project has been a way to process heavy things in my personal life, too. If viewers leave feeling more connected to the past, and to each other, then it’s done its job.”
The exhibit offers a moment for viewers to connect with the university’s history and the many stories that have shaped its community throughout the years.
“You are a part of Peace and all of its traditions that go with it,” said Christman. “That’s kind of exciting as his idea. He’s done a tremendous amount of work on this, and I’m excited to see it, and excited to help support him in any way that I can.”
Event Details
The installation will take place from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Kenan Hall. Once the event is over, part of it will be put on the third floor of the Flowe academic building.
Later that evening, family and friends are invited to gather on Main Lawn from 6:30 to 8 p.m. for the lighting of Peace’s annual 32-foot Christmas tree.
The celebration will feature performances from the Oakwood Waits carolers and members of the Broughton High School Marching Band. Guests can enjoy free hot chocolate and cookies. A photo station will be available for complimentary holiday pictures with friends and family. At 7 p.m., President Lynn Morton will lead the community in the official lighting of the tree.
The evening will bring Peace’s past and present together in a shared moment of reflection and celebration.