Calista Lyon is an artist working in photography’s expanded field, utilizing research and image-based strategies to explore dynamics of memory and resistance in the wake of ecological and social collapse. She employs multiple modes of knowledge production, drawing from the fields of ethnography and archival practices to create installations, performances and community engaged works that make visible the complexity of ecological destruction, communicate the internalized experience of “ecological grief” and offer reparative forms of existence through artistic inquiry.

Areas of Expertise

Photography, interdisciplinary research, ecology, installation, contemporary art practice

Education

2019 — Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University

2015 — Bachelor of Arts from California State University Lo

Courses Recently Taught

This course is an introduction to the principles, strategies and processes of photographic practice. It is designed to broaden the student's aesthetic explorations and to help the student develop a visual language in the media. This course includes instruction in digital camera operation such as image editing, creative camera work, color digital printing, and both natural and studio lighting concepts and composition. Through readings and discussions, students will be introduced to different ways of conceptualizing photography, and students will examine a range of historical and contemporary photo work as an essential part of understanding the possibilities of image making. Photography I is a project-structured course, with lectures, demonstrations, project assignments, regular critiques with active participation, discussions and one exam. Having a personal digital camera is recommended, although some cameras are available for student check out to complete the course.

This course is an introduction to digital photography as a creative medium. Subjects covered will include fundamental digital photography skills such as image editing, camera work and digital printing. Assignments will direct students toward the development of personal photographic expression, and the exploration of the shifting signs and significance of photography meaning and digitization. Through readings and discussions, students will be introduced to different ways of conceptualizing and interpreting photography based on such variables as process and technology, motives of representation and imagination, and the politics of visuality, history and identity. This counts toward the intermediate requirement for the major and minor. Prerequisite: ARTS 106, 107 or permission of instructor. Offered once a year.