Siobhán Byrns to discuss her work in Maier Artist Talk

Siobhán Byrns, Maggie, 2024, Chlorophyll print on hosta leaf

In The Green Ribbon: Chlorophyll Prints by Siobhán Byrns, currently on display at the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, Byrns explores the romanticized ideals imposed on women, particularly as wives and mothers. 

The exhibition, featuring chlorophyll prints on Hosta leaves, highlights the weight of expectations they bear, and the difficulty of establishing trust in a world where boundaries are too often ignored or violated.

On Sunday, Sept. 7, at 2 p.m., Byrns will discuss the exhibition and how women have been historically objectified and denied agency—a complement to the College’s Pearl S. Buck Award Ceremony on Sept. 10 and a lens through which to consider the life and legacy of award recipient Kim Phuc Phan Thi. 

Phuc was 9 years old in 1972 when she was immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, The Terror of War, an image that depicted her running naked in agony following a napalm strike during the Vietnam War.

Byrns will also reflect on photography’s evolving role in truth-telling and memory, deepening the connection to both Phuc’s advocacy and photographer Nick Ut’s documentary practice. 

On display through Sept. 21, the prints feature women of all ages, nationalities, races, and stories. 

The title is taken from a children’s story, The Girl with the Green Ribbon by Alvin Schwartz, where a green ribbon represents a closely-guarded secret and a symbol of a woman’s boundaries and the mystery of her autonomy.