Sea Change: Uncovering the Unseen
In the fall of 2025, an archive of deteriorated ichthyological glass plate negatives from the turn of the 20th century were unearthed from the basement of a university biology building. The images were attributed to Rosa Smith Eigenmann, the first female ichthyologist and the first female member and librarian of the San Diego Society of Natural History and her husband, Carl H. Eigenmann, an Indiana University alumnus, professor and administrator. The exhibition Sea Change: Uncovering the Unseen translates this found archive by combining image making tools, including film cameras and microscopes, to re-interpret these decaying archives into video, photographic, and artist book works. We seek to breathe new life into forgotten, decayed, and crumbling photographic materials.
Rosa Smith became interested in local natural history and collected plant and animal specimens, particularly fish, and discovered a new species of blind goby, Othonops eos, in the caves beneath Point Loma and published a paper describing it in 1881, at the age of 23. As a single author, Rosa Smith published 12 scientific papers describing her research. Inspired by her research, we traveled to San Diego to see what we could discover at Point Loma. Through the collection of water specimens, seaweed specimens, underwater videography and photography, this exhibition was developed, translating scientific discovery into art.
A collection lost, rediscovered over 100 years later, these plates serve as a record of the water damage, deteriorating the photographic image in a serendipitous way. Water, the life-force for these fish, also becomes the culprit of decay. Samples of ocean water collected from San Diego, where the ichthyology research was conducted, are examined at a microscopic level, combining an element of artistic discovery with the scientific research. These photographic plates have been transformed over the past 100 years, much like our aquatic ecosystems. We use the archive to re-frame and repurpose this scientific research and methods of discovery through artistic interpretation, reflecting on memory and the impermanence of the image and the importance of preservation.