Approx. 15’x20’
Projected Prose on Smoke from Fog Machines, 2015
To/Through explores the relationship between visual and written storytelling, memory, and history via letterforms, words, and phrases projected onto smoke. Words and phrases only become readable as light catches the smoke—a reference to the ephemeral nature of recollection and memories.
This was the intro video for Folk Nite:WunderKammer. Folk Nite is a community arts event in the suburbs of Chicago where accessibility to the arts is minimal and finding creative spaces to participate is quite difficult. Events are themed and include community-generated artwork and short-set performances.
Video was announced a Judge’s Choice for the 2014 Chicago Design Archives.
The introduction video was projected on an entire wall to signal to attendees that the event was starting. The video began playing while guests were mingling in the main event space. The sounds are comforting, evoking the memory of a lullaby. Type is manipulated in water similarly to how a scientist would mix chemicals in a beaker, referencing the scientific and exploratory notions of historic WunderKammen without literally visually presenting them.
Other event materials, such as the poster, wayfinding, and event set-lists were created from the same process as the video.
Attendees were encouraged to bring an item to contribute to a growing WunderKammer installation.
Newsprint Show Poster/Mailer
Broadsheet Format, 2016
Judson University’s Graphic Design BFA thesis exhibitions materials. The mailer opens to reveal more information about the two shows. The opened mailer doubles as the show poster. The title of the show hints at the personal themes of the individual projects. At the exhibition, a banner with the show graphics utilizes paper, which emphasizes the notion of a personal note or letter.
Hull-House Museum Social Justice Exhibit, 2012
The exhibit tells an untold story of the first generation of home economists who were equal rights advocates, chemists and public health advocates, labor reformers and innovators who sought to redefine domesticity. Filled with participatory experiences and hands-on activities, the exhibit describes the home economists’ visionary work to create a world with healthy food for all, fair labor practices for domestic work, ethical consumerism, and community childcare solutions.
Approx. 8’x12’ Projected Stories on Sheer Sheets, 2013
On February 14, 2008 at Northern Illinois University, a former student opened gunfire on a lecture hall, killing five, injuring over thirty, and rocking an entire community. As a student on campus that day, I have my story, as do others. Yet, our stories are not usually aggregated, shared, or combined; through sharing our memories, we can process them individually. Collaborative storytelling allows us to put these stories together, forming an overall shape, without losing the texture of each individual narrative.
The properties of projected light on sheer screens evoke a spirit of solemnity and catharsis—a safe place to face a difficult subject. This collective begins to take a readable form, creating not only a public record, but a pulpit—shining light on greater issues of gun violence through the lens of human experience.
Exhibition at Art In These Times, 2012
Regarded by some as innovative grassroots organizers and others as violent criminals, the history of the Chicago gang, the Conservative Vice Lords Inc. provides a lens for understanding the potential of grassroots organizing in urban communities.This evolving, multi-site project is a partnership between the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and former members of the Conservative Vice Lords, led by CVL spokesman Bobby Gore and Benneth Lee, co-founder of the National Alliance for the Empowerment of the Formerly Incarcerated.
Hull-House Museum Social Justice Exhibit, 2011
A community curated, participatory art exhibition that explores the importance of the arts and insists on cultural rights as part of a thriving democracy. The exhibit makes connections between Hull-House history and the contemporary moment, and seeks to unleash radical imaginations about a collective future. Interactive art-making stations throughout the space revive Hull- House’s commitment to learning-by-doing.
Hull-House Museum Core Exhibition, 2010
The Museum serves as a dynamic memorial to social reformer Jane Addams, the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and her colleagues whose work changed the lives of their immigrant neighbors as well as national and international public policy. The Museum preserves and develops the original Hull-House site for the interpretation and continuation of the historic settlement house vision, linking research, education, and social engagement.
