When research can be a rainbow…(2019)

Solo participatory exhibition, Eric & Ronna Hoffman Gallery, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR

As the Artist in Residence in the Hoffman Gallery during Fall 2019, I worked with faculty, students, and staff from Lewis & Clark College to make a collaborative, interactive exhibition called When research can be a rainbow that highlights the magic, nuance, and intimacy in processes of research. In some ways, the show was a portrait of research methods and in other ways it was a rainbow or a classroom or a cup of tea or a painting or a relationship. Always a conversation.

Artist and LC Art Department Co-Chair, Jess Perlitz, invited me to work in the gallery and design a project that would activate the space, attract folks from across campus (outside of the art department), and explore interdisciplinary ways of working. I proposed a show that would unfold over the course of the semester based on an ethnographic approach to understanding how different faculty members on campus do research. The title of the exhibition came from an email “subject line” written by Perlitz used to introduce me to Professor of Biology, Tamily Weissman. Tamily is a neurobiologist, and her research involves an approach called “Brainbow” which allows her team to label populations of brain cells in many different colors—creating perhaps the most useful rainbow in the world.

Emails like this one led to meetings with faculty in many departments across campus, and in the end, I interviewed 14 faculty members about their research methods. The content of those interviews was synthesized into a series of drawings and installations in the gallery. I also worked with research methods classes from Sociology, History, and Philosophy, research librarians and staff from the Watzek Library, and seven wonderful undergraduate project assistants to bring the exhibition to fruition. A full list of participants is below.



In addition to being a visual art show inspired by the color experiments of artist Josef Albers and the interviews about research methods with faculty, this project hosted a series of events and activities led by students, faculty, and staff at LC. These public programs offered a glimpse into the research methods and processes used by the people who initiated them.

Participating Faculty & Staff
Paul T. Allen, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Yaelle Amir, Independent Curator and Instructor of Curatorial Affairs at LC
Nora Beck, James W. Rogers Professor of Music, Director of Musicology
Anne Bentley, Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry
Greta Binford, Professor of Biology and Department Chair
Becko Copenhaver, Professor of Philosophy and Department Chair
Isabelle DeMarte, Associate Professor of French
Reiko Hillyer, Associate Professor of History
Rebecca Lingafelter, Associate Professor of Theater
Kabir Mansignh Heimsath, Visiting Assistant Professor with
Term of Anthropology and Asian Studies
Joel Martinez, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Liz Safran, Associate Professor of Geological Science
Sarah Warren, Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of Latin American Studies
Tamily Weissman, Associate Professor of Biology
Parvaneh Abbaspour, Science Research Librarian

E.J. Carter, Special Collections & Archives Librarian

Hannah Crummé, Head of Special Collections and College Archivist
Erica Jensen, Arts & Visual Resources Librarian
Daena Goldsmith, Associate Dean for Faculty Development

Student Collaborators
Aida Irving, Writer and Interactive Designer
Sarah Isenberg, Editor in Chief and Gallery Manager
Andrea Lewis, Director of Public Programs
Ellery Lloyd, Resident Artist Assistant/Gallery Representative
Noe Reyes, Assistant to the Resident Artist
Tyler Short, Assistant Curator
Charlotte Straus, Do It Herselfer