Cyborg Cyanotypes with Danni O'Brien - a workshop @ the Innovation Studio

Cyanotype is one of the oldest photographic printing processes that is camera-less and involves layering images or objects onto paper coated with a solution sensitive to UV light. The resulting images are striking blue and white and exist as records of drawn lines, objects' forms, and movement and time.

Found objects, natural and manmade, will be provided, as well as clear film in which you can make drawings or collages to print from -- all in an effort to create layered, cyborg-inspired prints!

Make sure to drop in with enough time to play -- the cyanotype process takes at least 30 minutes to complete. Led and hosted by current Innovation Studio + Store Resident Artist, Danni O'Brien.

Follow Danni @danni_obrien_art/

Follow MoCA Arlington @mocaarlington

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Header Image: Danni O'Brien on the left. Cyanotype by Anna Atkins on the right. Atkins was a botanist and photographer born in 1799! She's considered the first woman recorded to make a photograph.

Example of "Before" and "After" with the Cyanotype Process.

About the Artist

(she/they), b. 1992 in Falls Church, Virginia, is a Baltimore based, interdisciplinary artist. Her artistic practice is rooted in irreverence, tinkering, and owned queerness. Through scavenging and collecting, O’Brien assembles a reservoir of images, objects, and material from which to concoct enigmatic assemblages. In the studio, they cycle through continuous acts of deconstruction and reconstruction, and employ assemblage, cyanotype, ceramic handbuilding, paper making, mold making and casting, CNC routing, and woodworking, to concoct amalgamated sculptures and reliefs. O’Brien exhibits these works at venues such as Current Space, Hamiltonian Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Asya Geisberg Gallery, Tephra Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. She has been awarded residencies with PLOP, The Wassaic Project, Byrdcliffe Colony, Art Farm, Baltimore Clayworks, and Stove Works. They are the recipient of a 2022 Individual Artist Grant from the Belle Foundation for Cultural Development and a 2024 Individual Artist Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. O’Brien recently completed a semester-long artist in residency with Furman University in Greenville, SC and the alumni residency at Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency and is looking towards a solo exhibition in the winter of 2025 with Stove Works Gallery.

Host or Publisher Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington