Chosen

In the early 2010s, Hayden began creating sculptures and installations for both indoor and outdoor spaces. These were linked by his reliance on familiar, everyday motifs, some associated with African American culture, and his exploration of the human and natural worlds. Around 2013, Hayden first experimented with wood, the medium for which he is known today, and which he subjects to a wide variety of technical, formal, and structural transformations. In Chosen, Hayden created a multi-part installation that consists of a steel, wall-mounted rack with six mixed-media sculptures hanging on metal hooks. The sculptures are formed from laminated, soft yellow cedar that Hayden painstakingly bent to form abstracted human skeletons complete with spines, rib cages, clavicles, and shoulder blades. Visually, the arrangement calls to mind a store display as well as a butcher shop: the associations are as uncanny as they are disconcerting. Because the skeletons alternately turn towards or away from one another, as if engaging or dismissing their companions, the installation also assumes the mis-en-scène of a social gathering. For Hayden, Chosen does not represent death, but rather the process of and the ability to "choose" one’s object of desire. Importantly, for the artist, the sculptures do not specify particular gender or racial identities, opening up a wide field of affiliations.