By Justin Harmon
The Rev. Frederick J. “Jerry” Streets ’75 M.Div., who has taught pastoral theology at YDS since 1987, is used to a busy life. In addition to his work at YDS, Streets teaches two courses at the Columbia University School of Social Work one on spirituality and the practice of social work, the other on trauma while consulting with the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia’s Teacher’s College. He lectures on religion, spirituality, and mental health through the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma. And he serves as senior pastor of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ in New Haven, which he himself attended and served as an intern while a student at YDS.
“Sophy” from Gabrielle Muller’s exhibition
While taking photo courses at the School of Art, I began photographing my friends at YDS in the Spring of 2019. I was curious about the way photography and photographs function in communal spaces, and more specifically, the way photographs shape and preserve institutional narratives. I was also studying the way shame and guilt have operated as a means of establishing and consolidating power in theological claims about gender, sexuality, and otherness. I decided to build a project that challenged the prominence of the taken-for-granted current stories told by the photographs on the walls of YDS, by centering queer visibility.