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September 17, 2026

Undoing Racism Workgroup

Undoing Racism is a community collective of students, staff, and faculty in the School of Social Work dedicated to fighting white supremacy at individual, school, and structural levels.

September 17, 2026

Global Social Work Dinner

The Office of Student Services and Enrollment Management and the Office of Global Activities are pleased to host incoming and second-year international students, Global Activities Scholars Program students, Master’s International Volunteer Program students, Coverdell Fellows, and Global Social Wo

September 18, 2026

Prospective Student Session - Connect Virtually with a Current MSW Student

Join current MSW students from the Office of Student Services and Enrollment Management for a session with the intended audience of prospective students.
September 21, 2026

Prospective Student Session - Connect Virtually with a Current MSW Student

Join current MSW students from the Office of Student Services and Enrollment Management for a session with the intended audience of prospective students.
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Artwork at the SSW

Adrienne and Stéphane

Laura Letinsky (Canadian) , b. 1962

1992
Dye-coupler print
99.06

SSWB 2766

Early in her career as a photographer, Laura Letinsky captured people in the public sphere. In the early 1990s she moved to interiors, the place of intimacy. For six years she photographed couples, predominantly white and heterosexual, in their private moments and created a series called Venus Inferred. Initially she considered making pictures of love but she realized other things were happening. Working with established couples, first friends and then found by advertisement, she was witnessing their relationships not at the exciting beginning or the dramatic ending but at the in-between moments on a continuum of romantic life. This work captures the period in which the lovers realize that the romantic promises described in, and expected of, of pop culture messages are not going to happen. Letinsky captures individuals who sought a unique and exceptional relationship but we, as viewers, recognize the perfectly normal and predictable body language, spaces and outcomes.

Adrienne and Stéphane, from the series Venus Inferred, are shown in a private moment. They are in an intimate setting embraced by their couch on the left and coffee table on the right, surrounded by their personal accessories such as the coffee cups in front of them. Adrienne gazes into space with a bored(?), preoccupied(?) expression as Stéphane gazes at her neck with longing(?). Adrienne is foregrounded and it is her state of mind that is thrust upon us. What we see is not passion and excitement but ambivalence, vulnerability, uncertainty. Letinsky has captured a moment on the continuum of a relationship that reflects not the pop song, RomCom, Hallmark, TrueLove moment, but the perplexing nature of real personal interaction.