Although Waiilatpu is mostly known as the student organization responsible for producing Whitman’s yearbook every year, last week the group set up its first external project dubbed “Humans of Whitman” in the Stevens Gallery of Reid Campus Center. Inspired by the popular Facebook page “Humans of New York,” the project involves the pairing of photographs of students on campus with responses to a range of questions. Through this medium, Waiilatpu members hope to show the characteristics of some Whitman students while also introducing their organization to a wider audience on campus.
“The main reason we are doing it is because it’s a much more personal perspective on the students on campus. That’s probably the main motivator, the reason why I wanted to start it,” said Waiilatpu co-editor Meg Logue.
Logue envisioned the concept for “Humans of Whitman” in the fall of 2013. The project quickly became a major focus for Waiilatpu members because it resonated with Waiilatpu’s attempts to push the yearbook into a more modern direction. The staff has wanted to turn the focus away from events, and this project was a good opportunity to do that.
“I think one of the reasons why we want to [focus on this project is] because we thought that ‘Humans of Whitman’ was … so student-focused and so story-focused, and we wanted to emphasize that and make that association that the yearbook is not just about events,” said Waiilatpu co-editor Anna Zheng. “It’s about people and it’s about their narratives and the people on campus.”
The first step was gathering material for the print edition, with members photographing and asking students questions ranging from what their biggest fear is to what kind of ice cream flavor they would be. This served to gather information from students on campus for the initial publication of “Humans of Whitman” in the 2013-2014 yearbook while also increasing public awareness of Waiilatpu and their work.
“Just because we’ve been out and interviewing people, people are more aware of Waiilatpu, and I think it’s been good for the publication and also good for the students too,” said Zheng.
By fall of this year, some of the pictures and quotes used in the 2013-2014 yearbook were assembled to create the art gallery currently residing in the Stevens Gallery. Waiilatpu members hope that this is only a first step, with the goal being to feature the same students from this month’s gallery in a new spring gallery coinciding with the release of the 2014-2015 yearbook.
“We want to do one at the end of the year as well –– all of the photos down [in the Stevens Gallery] currently are from last year and the theme for the [yearbook] is ‘Transformations,’ so we’re going to do one at the end of the year with photos entirely from this year,” said Logue.
The attempt to create a follow-up gallery also reflects the positive reactions to “Humans of Whitman” received not only from members of the Whitman community but from individuals of a national college yearbook convention in Philadelphia that Logue and Zheng both attended. The hope is that this reaction will carry over in the future and allow Waiilatpu to continue displaying the characters of Whitman students in more galleries.
“We’re so excited that we’re getting so much good feedback about it, and it’s really nice to be able to go to the gallery and realize that … Whitman is made out of students and not just an institution,” said Zheng.
