Masumi Hayashi (photographer)

Masumi Hayashi (photographer)

Dr. Masumi Hayashi (September 3, 1945 - August 17, 2006) was an American photographer and artist who taught art at Cleveland State University, in Cleveland, Ohio, for 24 years. She won a Cleveland Arts Prize, three Ohio Arts Council awards, a Fulbright fellowship; awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, and Florida Arts Council; as well as a 1997 Civil Liberties Educational Fund research grant.

Dr. Hayashi created a large body of fine art "panoramic photo-collage" or photo collage involving shots taken on a tripod in successive rings, and later constructed as a more-or-less than 360 degree view. Of the over 200 pieces she created in this format, primary subject matter generally fit into the following series: WWII Internment Camps of Americans of Japanese Ancestry, Post-Industrial Landscape, EPA Superfund Sites, Abandoned Prisons, War and Military Sites, Commissions, City Works, and Sacred Architectures. Dr. Hayashi created the website: www.masumihayashi.com ("American Concentration Camps") in 1997 before the Japanese American Internment during World War II was widely discussed in the media. In 2004, Dr. Hayashi launched the www.masumimuseum.com, which is now an online archive of her work.

Hayashi's works are represented in numerous public and private collections, including the International Center of Photography (NYC), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Koblenz, Germany.