Research & Curation
Behind the Spine
Physical & Virtual Exhibit
Utilizing works from the St. Olaf College Special Collection, this in-person and virtual exhibit features the history, processes, and methods of bookbinding. Highlights includes codex bindings from medieval Europe, non-codex bindings from China and India, and modern artist book bindings.
April 2024
Christmas Fest: The Growth of a Legacy
Virtual Exhibit
St. Olaf College has a long history of its Christmas Concert which is heard across the United States over radio, TV, and recently, streaming. By showcasing the documents and objects in the St. Olaf College Archive, this virtual exhibit dives into the story behind the festival, and how this tradition has grown and changed throughout its one-hundred-year history.
May 2024
All Eyes on You
Virtual Exhibit & Proposal
Through analysis of Utamaro’s series of woodblock prints, The Twelve Hours of the Green Houses of Yoshiwara (Seirō jūnitoki), my collaborator (Anika James) and I dive into the imagined narrative of courtesans that was popular during Edo period Japan as depicted in print culture. The prints work to solidify in the viewers’ minds that courtesans exist to entertain their customers. The series epitomizes the popularity of voyeuristic prints and the simplification of the lives of courtesans to allow the viewer into an exclusive space.
November 2023
You Are What You Eat
Research Paper
In this essay, I compare the 19th-century genres of Orientalism and Medievalism through the collation of Jonathan Culler’s “Semiotics of Tourism”, writings on Medievalism, Edward Said’s “Orientalism” and Linda Nochlin’s “Imaginary Orient”. Putting these two seemingly disparate genres in conversation reveals 19th-century desire and opens analysis of the relationship between voyeuristic tourism, nostalgia, consumption, and otherization. It is clear that both genres of painting depict otherization created specifically for Western audiences to consume. Through this consumption, the viewer obtains the ideals depicted in the imagery, thus giving them a perceived ownership over their history and control of their present in a period marked with technological and social uncertainty.
May 2023
Blocks of Red
Virtual Exhibit
Breaking artworks into their most basic forms opens up the possibility of comparing seemingly disparate works of art. This exhibition proposal collates a range of Meiji era and modern woodblock prints from Japan, all with the unifying theme of the color red. By holding these works in space together, we are able to witness both the versatile ways in which a single color can be used as well as how this color effects the piece that contains it.
December 2023
