MFA Candidate, Art & Design
We are standing on the threshold of a door that exists between the self and the other; between a place and a non-place. Behind us, there is a line of familiar and strange faces. In front of us is the sea. As we set sail, the past turns into a blur. Everything is going to change after this. We know if we walk through the door, we will leave parts of us behind; parts of ourselves.
“The sea will bring us to the destination,” they say; there is the image of a happy, collective life there. The nature of the image, however, is deceptive. How much of our collective images are manipulated? In fact, everything can be manipulated, it is so familiar that we have to stand at its threshold every single day. You are standing on the threshold: you have to choose between leaving and staying. You are now standing on the threshold of the door that is the dividing line between two nightmares. You have lived the former quite a few times; the nightmare of the destination, however, is not going to end after the arrival. This project is an attempt to bring to light the lost aspects of the migration process. The ship may never reach the shore, and if it does, the passengers may never feel like home again, even though they walk the warm sands of the shore.
This project is a new version of “Door of No Return” installation project which was exhibited in my country, Iran. The project is based on a research and interview with numbers of Iranian refugees and immigrants in across the world. The questions had been designed to ask about destination and how far they think the distance is between them and the other who has been living in its country. This project challenged audiences in Iran to think about the destination. The library’s phone box is a new opportunity to redesign the project for the American audience. The door of the room seems work as a bridge for the audience to connect more to a memory of immigrants.
Abby LewisBachelor of Science, Mathematics & Cinema Studies
My “Fabric of Mathematics” exhibition is intended to showcase the overlap between math and art, and to honor the women who have explored that intersection. There are mathematicians who call themselves artists, but I find that artists rarely call themselves mathematicians. I hope that the objects I have created for this exhibit show that many artistic techniques, especially in the fiber arts, are inherently mathematical. The women who have developed the fiber arts over generations deserve to be recognized for their artistic and intellectual expertise. My exhibit is dedicated to them, and to my mom, who is both an amazing fiber artist and an amazing mathematician, even if she wouldn’t immediately identify with that second label!
PhD Candidate, English
Manualism / Oralism demonstrates two philosophies concerning education and communication for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. These positions, known as Manualism and Oralism, inform highly consequential matters in a Deaf person’s life, such as language acquisition and usage, education methods, medical procedures, and cultural participation.
Manualism is the view that sign language and gestures should be prioritized as the primary communication method for those who are Deaf, and that Deaf individuals should receive instruction in sign language. In the US, American Sign Language (ASL) is the standard, although—like other languages—it has many dialects. Proponents of Manualism see the Deaf community as a linguistic minority and distinct culture. For them, Manualism means cultural preservation. This is because fully participating in Deaf culture requires ASL, a language suited to the Deaf community’s visually-dominant sensory and spatial orientation. One way the Deaf community preserves its culture is through institutions that utilize ASL as the primary language, such as Deaf schools, places of worship, work places, and community organizations like scout troops and sports leagues. Within the arts, the Deaf community has its own poetry, music, art, dance and theater companies—notably, the National Theatre of the Deaf and Deaf West Theater. Manualists in the US argue that ASL language acquisition is the cornerstone of access to the Deaf community’s unique cultural knowledges, artistic scenes, and means of expression.
Oralism is the view that people who are Deaf should learn auditory speech and related communication techniques, such as lip-reading. Proponents of this view, including Alexander Graham Bell, have argued that Deaf individuals benefit from hearing technologies and oral speech communication skills that allow them integration among broader auditory cultures. Over the last century, Deaf individuals who received oral education underwent speech therapy to learn the combination of respiratory patterns, motor control techniques, and mouth shapes that generate auditory language. Since the invention of the cochlear implant, a surgically implanted device that transmits sound as electronic signals to the auditory nerve, and significant improvements in hearing aids, the Oralists tradition has shifted toward encouraging people with hearing impairments to utilize these medical prosthetics. In the realm of medicine, Oralists promote cures for hearing impairments. Regarding education, they prioritize auditory-based communication methods for Deaf individuals.
These two philosophies are not necessarily mutually exclusive when a person who is Deaf has access to the knowledges and skills that stem from both sides. Historically, contention between these views arose for the Deaf community whenever Oralists inhibited the education and usage of ASL. The middle ground between Manualism and Oralism is a philosophy called Total Communication, which combines manual and oral means of communication. Given a choice, individuals within the Deaf community may decide how they wish to implement the skills and communication methods that best suit their own needs and desires.
Manualism / Oralism was inspired by the David de Lorenzo Disability Ephemera Collection housed within UO’s Special Collections. I credit my friend, the poet/activist/scholar, Dr. Raye Hendrix, for helping me with this little exhibit.
Want to learn more?
Check out the UO Disability Studies Minor at: https://humanities.uoregon.edu/disability-studies
or by scanning the QR code:
Bachelor of Science, Biology
Interdisciplinary thinking is integral to the way I live my life and the ways the fields that I study progress. Growing up, I considered studying dentistry, since methods in orthodontics aligned so closely with one of my favorite artistic hobbies: nail art. I have always sought to correlate my interests in art and science by seeking the scientific within the artistic and the artistic within the scientific. This topic of conversation came up when I first met my research mentor in my lab here on campus, Genny. She graduated from dental school and agreed that part of what drew her to this educational pathway was its artistic nature. Since joining her project, I have reveled in how creativity and artistry translate into our research process, particularly in regards to fluorescent imaging. In the Guldberg Lab, I work with Genny to fabricate bone-like tissue fragments known as organoids, and build experiments with the hope of optimizing their character to emulate native bone. Part of this characterization process involves immunofluorescent staining. The process uses
antibodies to tag cellular structures with fluorescent markers, similar to the methods used to identify COVID in a take-home COVID-19 test. When put under a fluorescent microscope, our samples glow with magnificent, intricate, three-dimensional fluorescent patterns. These images have inspired my idea for a Tiny Gallery exhibit: a black-light display of glowing, biological images and structures. The fluorescent world was built by scientists to acquire useful information about hidden, microscopic worlds. It allows us to look inside structures and assess their cellular, molecular, or chemical characteristics.
Fluorescence can be beautiful and enticing to the senses, just like black-light displays, but most people rarely get to experience it, especially not with an understanding of how manipulating light can be utilized in science. My goal is to create a display that will reveal this hidden world to both entertain and educate people. I plan to recreate the joy of capturing fluorescent images by displaying photographs of these images in a dark space lit with black light, and replicating their complex designs with neon paint.
1501 Kincaid Street
Eugene, OR 97403
P: 541-346-3053
F: 541-346-3485