Seaweed Cyanotype Workshop

Join Oriana Poindexter and Usal Project in San Diego for an interactive cyanotype workshop at Mengei International Museum! Learn this early alternative photographic process and use organic materials to create your own cyanotype prints using photo chemistry techniques first developed in the 1840s.

The resulting prints are records of the state of the ocean and your creative process on that particular day, recorded in the blue and white palette of the sea itself. Cyanotype is an alternative photographic process used to create photographic prints in the distinctive shade of Prussian blue and white without the use of a camera, exposed with the sun and developed in water.

This workshop will teach you the fundamentals of the cyanotype process, its history, and will culminate with each participant creating three original cyanotype prints - usually something frame worthy.

The first portion of the workshop will involve an introduction, demonstration, and selection of materials, and the second portion will be a printing session. If you have materials you’d like to bring to use for printing (sentimental objects, dried botanicals, etc), please feel free to bring them.

Oriana Poindexter is a photographer and marine scientist. Her work opens dialogues about our relationship with the changing biodiversity of the ocean using traditional and alternative photo processes.

Poindexter holds an M.A.S. in Marine Biodiversity & Conservation from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a B.A. in Visual Arts from Princeton University. Her work has been published by Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and exhibited at the Oceanside Museum of Art, the Center for Fine Art Photography, and the San Diego Public Library, and many others. She creates art-science exhibits for Southern California’s leading aquariums, most recently for Embodied Pacific: Ocean Unseen, the Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego’s participation in the Getty Center’s PST Art Initiative. Her works are held in private collections across the United States and in Europe.

This event is presented by USAL Project and Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide as part of the San Diego and La Jolla PST ART Weekend(opens in a new tab). USAL Project is a community providing experiences & goods for the modern outdoor enthusiast. With a team of hand selected guides, USAL and PST ART are collaborating to offer a series of free local workshops and retreats across all things outdoors, sustainably, and wellness.

PST ART is presented by Getty. The lead sponsors supporting PST ART are Bank of America, Alicia Miñana & Rob Lovelace, and the Getty Patron Program. Additional support is provided by the Simons Foundation; Eva & Ming Hsieh, Co-Founders of Fulgent Genetics; and Peggy & Andrew Cherng, Co-Chairs and Co-CEOs of Panda Express.

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The latest edition of Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to Indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art(opens in a new tab)