Ingrid Lahti

enamel pins
commercially produced multiples
purchase on Etsy: LahtiStudio
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When I was a child my dad told me to make friends with the monsters in my dreams — to make them less scary. It worked, but I never met one as scary as the Coronavirus! I wanted to bring a little levity to life by accessorizing with the very icon of these tumultuous times.

sculpture series

Materials: Mini-basketballs, latex paint, pushpins and beads on steel bases

Dimensions: each piece 11” H x 10” W x 10” D

A series of sculptural memento mori depicting covid viruses, putting a face to our fears of pandemic and mortality.

Covid Effigy I (gray/red)

Covid Effigy II (red/blue)

Covid Effigy III (gray/white)

Covid Effigy IV (green/orange)

painting series

Covid Icon I
Materials: Oil stick, paint and ink on birch wood panel
Dimensions: 8” x 8” x 1” D

Covid Icon II
Materials: Printed papers and ink on birch wood panel
Dimensions: 8” x 8” x 1” D

Covid Icon III
Materials: Gold leaf, oil stick, paint and ink on birch wood panel
Dimensions: 4” x 4” x 1” D

These portraits invoke the reverence and awe of the religious icon tradition to depict the covid virus in all its strange power. Nearly overnight this pervasive force of mystery and mortality has irrevocably altered the world, transforming societies, claiming lives and changing us all. It is a worthy object of our humility and respect.

sculpture, lichen series

Materials: CD Walkman, hot glue, scrap materials

Dimensions: 6" x 6" x 1.5"

wall-mounted sculptures

Materials: Ink, beads, scrap materials on birch panel

Dimensions: each piece 8” H x 8” W x 2.5” D

These Dark Lichens are a further development of my body of work devoted to lichens of the temperate Pacific Northwest. These symbiotic organisms thrive in habitats where neither partner could survive on its own. Small and ubiquitous, lichens attach themselves to rocks, trees and other physical supports, but take their nourishment solely from the air and the rain.

I celebrate them for their aesthetic appeal and their good example of cooperation and sustainability.

sculpture, lichens series

Materials: Scrap materials, glue

Dimensions: 2” H x 8” W x 6” D

The sex life of lichens is here depicted in the aluminum shavings twisting skyward from the gray mass. These fruiting bodies will produce spores to spread the lichen dynasty.

Part of my ongoing body of work devoted to lichens of the temperate Pacific Northwest. These symbiotic organisms thrive in habitats where neither partner could survive on its own. Small and ubiquitous, lichens attach themselves to rocks, trees and other physical supports, but take their nourishment solely from the air and the rain. I celebrate them for their aesthetic appeal and their good example of cooperation and sustainability.

Photo: Leo Daedalus

kinetic public sculpture
Carkeek Park, Seattle, WA

Medium: steel with 1008 moving mirrors

Rippling Water is a kinetic sculpture installed at Carkeek Park July 23 – September 25, 2016 as a part of the outdoor exhibition Heaven and Earth VIII: Wild Germination.

With 1008 moving mirrors, Rippling Water relates to the surface of Puget Sound at Carkeek Park. The flickering mirrors generate a constantly changing visual experience, like sunlight on moving water. The sculpture poses questions about perception: what is the difference between similar visual experiences—the sculpture versus the Sound? Why does this kind of visual experience captivate us? Lahti offers viewers an opportunity to become aware of how they pick up information with all of their senses and how visual effects can fascinate and evoke ideation.

Rippling Water is one of six environmental art projects that offer various interpretations of “Wild Germination,” a theme chosen by guest curator Morgan McElfresh, local arts teacher at nearby Viewlands Elementary School.

Since 2009, the ongoing Heaven and Earth series of temporary, outdoor environmental art projects has explored art and nature in a rapidly changing climate. The exhibition, one of the few in the United States to occur in a public park, an urban forest, is sponsored by the Carkeek Park Advisory Council (CPAC), Seattle Parks and Recreation, and the Associated Recreation Council, with individual artist support from the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and 4Culture.

Rippling Water is the third of Lahti’s artworks for the Heaven and Earth series that utilize moving mirrors. See also Galaxy M51 (2013) and Feeling Flight (2010).

—

Rippling Water is funded in part by a 2016 CityArtist Projects Grant from Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture and by a 2016 4Culture Art Projects Award.

site-specific installation
in On Capturing Transient Bodies at
ArtsWest Gallery, Seattle, WA
January 15 – March 7, 2015

Materials: 2400 white 9 mm round pins on wall
Dimensions: 84” x 60” x 0.5”

White pins map star positions derived from Hubble Space Telescope composite images of Messier 81 (M81), a spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. The shadows cast by the pins give a sense of layering and depth, heightening the immersive feeling of the installation.

The simple materials and meticulous handiwork foreground the epistemological work we do in trying to come to grips with the scale of our cosmos and our place in it.

The Hubble Space Telescope images are freely accessible at HubbleSite.

in the same exhibition:

Study for Galaxy M81 (2015)

Medium: Paper, tape, orange sticker dots
Dimensions: 84” x 60” x 0”

In place of pins, orange sticker dots create a different, dynamic interpretation of the Hubble imagery in this study for Galaxy M81 .

sculpture, lichen series

Materials: Wooden chair, pins, glue, scrap materials.

Dimensions: 20” H x 12” W x 12” D

Lichens thrive on almost any surface. This wooden child’s chair is a playful reminder that nature supplies, and reclaims, all our works.

Photos: Leo Daedalus

site-specific installation
in Accreted Terrane at
Museum of Northwest Art (MoNA)
La Conner, WA
October 4, 2014 – January 4, 2015
Curated by David Francis

Materials: scrap materials, pins, glue and paint on wall
Dimensions: 48" x 36" x 1.5"

Scraps of humble materials cling to the walls like the lichens of the temperate Pacific Northwest in a colorful reminder of our deep roots in the natural world.

Part of my ongoing body of work devoted to lichens of the temperate Pacific Northwest. These symbiotic organisms thrive in habitats where neither partner could survive on its own. Small and ubiquitous, lichens attach themselves to rocks, trees and other physical supports, but take their nourishment solely from the air and the rain. I celebrate them for their aesthetic appeal and their good example of cooperation and sustainability.

> Read Artist's Statement

> See Curator's Statement

public installation
Carkeek Park, Seattle, WA

Medium: 320 moving, reflective, mirror-polished stainless steel tags (1.75” x 1.75” x 1/16” each) and galvanized steel frame.
Dimensions: 14’ H x 6.5’ W x 1” D

Galaxy M51 was installed as a part of Acclimatized: Heaven & Earth 5, Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), in collaboration with Seattle Parks & Recreation and the Carkeek Park Advisory Council. Supported in part by an award from 4Culture, July 13 – October 20, 2013.

Galaxy M51 is based on imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope.

This artwork reminds viewers of our place in the universe. The installation is in constant flux as the multiple, moving reflections shimmer and reflect bits of the sky, the landscape, and the ambient light. Each viewer’s subjective perception and associations to the work are unique.

Light Boxes is a site-specific installation that was part of Storefronts Seattle, Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, in partnership with Shunpike, Seattle, WA.

site-specific installation
CoCA: Georgetown Gallery

Aquatic Interactome, a wall-based, site-specific installation for CoCA’s Georgetown Gallery, offered an ephemeral narrative about life in an imagined coral reef. I composed the installation from pins, toothpicks, dead bugs, pieces of colored gels, bits of drink cans, and other scraps attached directly on the gallery wall. Shadows and reflections added a sense of layering and depth. Each viewer’s experience of this work was transient, yet unique and mutable.

Architects also have recently begun to deploy embodied metaphors of the natural world in works such as Jürgen Mayer H’s tree-inspired Metropol Parasol in Seville, Toyo Ito’s Sendai Mediatheque, and Zaha Hadid’s riverlike spaces.

public installation
Seattle Waterfront Park

Materials: 320 2” x 2” Plexiglas mirrors, aluminum, cable

Dimensions: 6’ x 6’ x 1/2”

Installed at Seattle's Waterfront Park between the Aquarium and the Seattle Great Wheel as part of Art Interruptions, the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs summer initiative.

The glittering of 320 swaying mirrors echoed the rippling waters of Puget Sound and the shimmer of the newly opened Seattle Great Wheel amusement ride. Carousel linked the built environment of the waterfront to its natural surroundings.

We humans see and feel through physical bodies that evolved in the natural world over millennia. Natural metaphors like Carousel’s array of reflective surfaces elicit a rich perceptual response from visitors. This artwork reminds us that perception is embodied, rather than restricted to vision and the intellect.

sculpture series (2007–12)
dimensions variable

The Forest series play off recent discoveries in cognitive neuroscience. These site-specific, wall-based installations joyously bring viewers’ attention to the way perception is embodied, rather than restricted to vision and the intellect.

We humans see and feel through physical bodies that evolved in the natural world over millennia. Natural metaphors such as that of Forest operate to elicit a fuller perceptual response from visitors. Wire, metal bits, detritus, push pins, beads, reflections, and shadows float from a loose, three dimensional gird to elicit the full-bodied feeling of walking through a sun-dappled forest.

Forest (2007)
Seattle, WA

Forest II (2012)
Tashiro Kaplan, Seattle, WA

Forest III (2012)
private collection, Seattle WA

site-specific public installation
Port Angeles Fine Art Center
Port Angeles, Washington
Curated by Jake Seniuk

Medium: Plexiglas tags, aluminum and cable.
Dimensions: 5’ x 5’.

"[Floating] between two fir trunks, Lahti’s square Plexiglas quilt plays loose with spatial depth. Comprised of hundreds of mirrored squares arranged in a diamond pattern, the tug and pull between bits of reflection and bits of background seen through the voids creates a somewhat charming 3-D effect in what is really a flat visual plane."

— Jake Seniuk, Art Outside Makes It a Dozen, On Center, PAFAC, July-September 2011, Vol XXIII, No.3, p3

site-specific installation
Traver Gallery, Seattle
April 7 – May 27, 2011

Squeeze II is a tall, soft minimalist sculpture that invites visitors to walk into its flexible, neoprene fold. The installation is accompanied by a performance video and a readymade: the neoprene wetsuit that inspired the sculpture.

Squeeze II is a reinterpretation of Squeeze (2005) and features the original Squeeze video from that installation. The video was choreographed to elicit an emotional response in viewers and to activate their mirror neurons. The mirror neuron system is a set of brain regions that becomes engaged when an observer instinctively understands what other people are experiencing. Entering the sculpture (physically) and the readymade (imaginatively) reinforces the emotional connections to the performance on the video.

Squeeze II was installed at the Traver Gallery in Seattle as a part of Dual, the Private Life of Sculpture, curated by metal artist Catherine Grisez. Ranging from large-scale interactive conceptual sculptures to wearable art-jewelry, Dual featured work by twelve artists. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalog featuring images of each of the artists' work.

> See Squeeze (2005)

public installation

Neon installation in Seattle's historic Chinatown-International District as part of the Storefronts Seattle urban revitalization program.

From Storefronts Seattle website:

“Storefronts Seattle is a community-driven effort to help revitalize Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square and Chinatown-International District neighborhoods by bringing vibrancy, activity, and light to otherwise vacant spaces and sparsely populated streetscapes. The program started in early 2010, when members of both neighborhoods sought solutions for the growing number of vacant storefronts in the area, which contribute to a lack of foot traffic, public safety issues, and less incentive for community engagement.

“Through a collaborative partnership from a number of local business, art, government and cultural organizations, this program will bring new life to currently empty spaces. Beginning on September 2nd, Storefronts Seattle will feature original artworks by local artists displayed in storefront spaces throughout these two neighborhoods. The program will also establish artist residencies for the creation of new artworks and provide support for creative enterprises.

“Storefronts Seattle is part of a national wave of community-driven collaboration between businesses and artists to activate empty spaces and renew public activity in neighborhoods. Similar programs are taking place in San Francisco; New York; Portland, Oregon and Tacoma, Washington.”

public installation
Carkeek Park, Seattle

Materials: 450 2” x 2” Plexiglas mirrors, aluminum, cable

Dimensions: 8’ H x 9’ W x ½” D

Installed as part of Heaven and Earth II, June 26 – Sept 26, 2010 at Carkeek Park. A joint project of CoCA and Carkeek Park Advisory Council, Seattle.

Hundreds of small mirrors suspended in rows between trees shimmer and undulate in the wind. Derived from scientific studies of the aerodynamics of butterfly flight, Feeling Flight earned its name by engaging viewers’ kinesthetic as well as visual perception.

Butterflies are an intermediary between heaven and earth; they begin their lives as homely, gravity-bound, crawling creatures and metamorphose into beautiful, light, flying beings that instill joy and wonder.

The mirrored tags flutter in the air, and creating the constantly changing, flickering illusion of flight.

ongoing series of neon sign sculptures

These neon signs encapsulate messages our culture broadcasts continually to wear away the rough edges of our individuality. It seems we have to be standardized and restricted to allow society to flow smoothly. The text of each sign, the color, and its disguise as commercial signage reflect my intent to advertise that dilemma.

Public Installations:

> PLEASE LIE (2008)
Capitol Hill, Seattle, for Sound Transit

DO NOT/REMEMBER (2002)
Installation at the City of Tacoma's Commencement Gallery, former Woolworth windows.

Press:

Hackett, Regina. “NW glass art outside the Seattle glass mainstream,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 24, 2008.

public installation
in STart on Broadway
Capitol Hill, Seattle

Materials: Custom-produced neon signs

Installed in a defunct storefront as part of STart on Broadway, a temporary installation project by Sound Transit celebrating the extension of light rail service to Capitol Hill in Seattle. Please Lie continues Lahti's works in neon since 1999.

Artist's Statement:

I've installed my neon signs in the windows of the former Mongolian Grill to fit seamlessly into this tired, abandoned site and to postpone the impression of an art project. I want to suggest that these signs were left behind when the business moved.

When people look more closely, it becomes clear that these signs are not operating like commercial signage. They’re not advertising. My signs operate in a different way because they’re about ideas. I have chosen words, colors, typefaces, and imagery to express contradictions, tensions, and desires I see in our culture.

Often short messages in these signs — such as PLEASE LIE in white neon — simultaneously attract and repel.

Press:

“STart on Broadway,” Sound Transit website, 2008.

public sculpture

For Art Outside IX, 2008, Port Angeles Fine Art Center, Port Angeles, WA. Curator: Jake Seniuk.

installation

Aluminum tags cut from recycled cans are pinned to a painted wall in a pattern drawn from sonogram data of American robin song. The tags oscillate with ambient air currents, further evoking the dynamics of birdsong.

The original data forming the basis of this work appear in The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong (2005, Houghton Mifflin), and was used with the permission of author Donald Kroodsma.

Digital print of hypothetical sculpture. Graphic design by Leo Daedalus from original photographs by Ingrid Lahti.

public artwork
Auburn, Washington

Medium: stainless steel.
Dimensions: 14' x 5' x 1.4".

Integrated public artwork and landscape treatment for the entrance to the Les Gove Community Campus on Auburn Way South, commissioned by the Auburn Arts Commission, Auburn, Washington, completed in 2006.

The sign encodes elements of the history of Auburn: The bead-finished surface of the gently curved stainless steel sign recalls the waters of the White River which once flowed through this area before the diversion dam altered its course. The sign's font was taken from that of the Northern Pacific Railroad which ran through this area. (The homes adjacent to the campus were once those of railroad employees.) The graphic elements, alluding to the river bank and flowing water, were inspired by the 100 flowering cherry trees on the campus grounds, donated by a Japanese sister city in honor of the Japanese immigrants who once farmed this area.

public artwork

For Art Outside VII, Port Angeles Fine Art Center, curated by Jake Seniuk. Port Angeles, Washington.

"[Rocksuit was] sewn and form-fitted around a large landscape erratic. Made of neoprene and snuggled around the massive boulder's bulk with zippers, it is a tony two-tone 'wetsuit' of black and aqua that might be worn by John Kerry windsurfing down the Columbia Gorge. With more than a whiff of black humor, Lahti foreshadows the rising of the sea up the slopes of Beaver Hill to swallow Webster's Woods [the site of Art Outside] as global warming advances."

— Jake Seniuk, On Center, August–September, 2006, p3

permanent installation
Northwest Film Forum, Seattle

The Chandelier, commissioned for the lobby of the Seattle's Northwest Film Forum, is composed of 42 vintage amber globe lamps from thrift stores and garage sales: perfect for the lobby of a theater devoted to the history of cinema.

Also shown:

Chandelier prototype (2004)
Installed at NWFF’s The Little Theater in Seattle.

installation and video
Barefoot Studios, Tacoma, Washington

Squeeze grew out of consideration of the ambivalence with which we relate to our bodies, including our constant search for physical pleasures through touch and food, in opposition to our attempts to control and shape our bodies as though they were foreign objects.

As visitors squeezed through the interactive installation they created fleeting impressions, like Etch-a-Sketch drawings, on the walls of the neoprene tunnel. Performing in this way for others closed the conceptual loop between themselves and the woman attempting to squeeze her real body into a standard-sized neoprene wetsuit in the continually looping, 3-minute Squeeze video. This participation encouraged visitors to feel their sensations while watching the video and physically engaging with the installation.

Squeeze was presented as part of SKIN, 2005, an exhibition of sculpture, prints, and video at the Barefoot Studios in Tacoma, Washington. The choreographers and dancers of the Barefoot Studios presented an evening of dance and performance in conjunction with the exhibition.

> See also Squeeze II (2011)

public artwork

For Art Outside VI, Port Angeles Fine Art Center, curated by Jake Seniuk. Port Angeles, Washington.

"'Hisselly Songs of an American Robin,' made of aluminum, holds a sonogram pattern representing three seconds of a robin's song."
— Jake Seniuk, Seattle Times, 2005

The aluminum tags move in the wind.

Press: Kathryn True, “In tune with art and nature in Port Angeles,” Seattle Times, March 10, 2006.

public artwork

For Art Outside V, Port Angeles Fine Art Center, curated by Jake Seniuk. Port Angeles, Washington.

permanent public installation for
Sound Transit Art Program (STart)
Tacoma Link Light Rail Convention Center

STart Cairns is a collection of five towers of stacked river rocks held in balance within tall stainless steel cages. It is a permanent public sculptural installation for the Tacoma Link Light Rail Convention Center/South 15th Street Station, Tacoma, Washington. Commissioned by the Sound Transit Art Program (STart), funded by a 1-Percent-for-Art ordinance.

The Cairns evoke timeless human wayfaring, the glaciers that formed Tacoma’s geography, and the Buddhist temple formerly sited nearby.

> See Artist’s Statement

From STart Tacoma Link materials:

"With Zen-like balancing rocks paying homage to the former site of a Buddhist temple, the Convention Center Station is perhaps the station most focused on the city’s future. With the new center opening in 2004, the theme of this station is tied to international connections and progress. . . .

"The multi-leveled garden on the east side of the station includes five stone and steel cairns, made by Seattle artist Ingrid Lahti. The sculptural cairns are a reminder of how the lessons of the past continue to mark the way to the future. Ancient stones enclosed in contemporary stainless steel embody the balance and the tension between tradition and innovation seen everywhere in the evolving Tacoma cityscape."

Press:

Jen Graves, “A cultural journey: Artwork paves way for new streetcars,” The News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington, July 1, 2003.

“Tacoma Link Stations,” Sound Transit website, September 5, 2003.

“STart on Broadway,” Sound Transit website, 2003.

public sculpture

Installed in Bellevue Downtown Park, Sept. 11 – Oct. 15, 2002 with the 2002 Bellevue Sculpture Exhibition. Bellevue, Washington.

Materials: Aluminum frame and tags, cable ties

Dimensions: 13’ H x 6’ W x 30” D

3,014 aluminum tags shimmered in the breeze on two tall towers. Each tag bore the name of a victim of the 9/11 attacks, handwritten by one of hundreds of community volunteers. Structural engineers, local businesses and the Parks Department donated time, expertise and materials. The project was funded by the Bellevue Arts Commission and private donors.

> Read Artist’s Statement

> See Original Project Proposal

Press:

Gayle Clemans, “Mercer Island artist Ingrid Lahti put 9/11 feelings into form,” Seattle Times, September 10th, 2011.

Sam Bennett, “Artist will recreate twin towers in pond,” Seattle Daily Journal, July 31, 2002.

Vanessa Ho, “A day in September, one year later,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 11, 2002.

Mary L. Grady, “The Art of Remembrance,” Mercer Island Reporter, September 12, 2002.

9/11 Memorial video (2004):

• Director of Photography: Lars Larson
• Editor: Leo Daedalus
• Piano score: Für Alina by Arvo Pärt, 1976 by permission of Universal Editions
• Pianist: Robert Eisenman

First screened at WigglyWorld's 7th Annual Local Sightings Program, NW Film Forum, Seattle

cairn sculpture series

I identify with the rocks, projecting onto them psychologically. The containing structures, the cages, are both a support and a trap. In making these pieces I create a feeling or response within myself, so the cairns become bearers of emotional meaning for me. I feel the sculpture somewhere in my body (which is the principle that lead to Squeeze, 2005, and then evolved into the Rocksuit,2006.)

cairn sculpture

The Rock Tower is the first of a series of cairn sculptures, including the Small Cairns and the STart Cairns.

collaborative public art

Made for the Mercer Slough Bus Shelter, Native Species of the Slough is a joint Studio Project with five artists in the Public Art & Design Program, BCC Art-Zones and Bellevue Arts Commission, Bellevue, Washington.

installation with video
Fisher Gallery and Video Annex, Seattle

HEAVY/light is conceived as a narrative in three spaces: the entry, the passage, and the chandelier crash space. Very generally, I created these spaces to evoke physical feelings of ambivalence, and disorientation, and to resolve the tension with the cathartic shattering of the chandelier.

A neon sign at the entrance alternated messages: come here / GO AWAY. Inside, a path of river rocks created a passage around the perimeter of the gallery. They were illuminated by low, motorized, pendulum lights swaying above them. Within the perimeter of rocks was strewn debris from the chandelier which crashed in the projected video loop.

The video, Chandelier Crash, was projected as a continuous loop on one wall of the installation. It showed a giant chandelier repeatedly crashing to the ground, the sound of which filled the space. The chandelier was similar to the Chandelier (2005) permanently installed at the Northwest Film Forum.

Memorial for Columbine HS
collaborative installation
Cleveland High School, Seattle

Materials: Nine 18” x 18” mosaic portraits made from fragments of stone-patterned paper were scanned and printed on adhesive-backed Scotchprint floor decal material and affixed to the concrete floor of the exhibition space.

Dimensions: 10’ x 10’

Installation in Here and There, a joint project of Center on Contemporary Art and Cleveland High School as part of LAND/USE/ACTION, a project series by CoCA with partners in the Seattle community.

In the wake of the 1999 Columbine shootings, Mosaic honored Seattle high school students and the courage they needed growing up in contemporary American society. Their portraits echoed mosaics of classical antiquity depicting gods and other respected cultural icons, as well as the Fayum encaustics of Ptolemaic Egypt.

> Read Artist’s Statement

Model: proposal for large-scale public art project as part of Five Sites at former Sand Point Naval Station, Seattle, 1999.

“The shadows pose the question: friend or foe? Almost since the invention of the airplane, spotters and pilots have scanned the skies attempting to distinguish friendly from foreign.…”
— From the Artist’s Proposal

installation

Part of the METALCRAFT traveling exhibition curated by Carole Fuller. Photographed in the Western Gallery at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.

The triangular shelter structure leaning against the gallery wall is built of galvanized steel construction studs over a mild steel frame with inset french doors. In the left lower corner of the structure, a motor turns a small wire construction on a screen. Lit from below, its shadow on the wall suggests a spider in a web. The sound of the motor animates the space.

On the right is a garbage can containing four flicker lamps "burning" cast aluminum branches, like a homeless person's fire in the street.

installation

A sequence of eighty slides is projected into a water-filled galvanized iron washbasin. The slides, depicting water in many different forms and states, suggest what the water — apparently contained and domesticated — might be thinking, as it allows us a temporary illusion of control.

The work grew out of my experience observing the comings and goings of my own thoughts and emotions during meditation.

installation

Site-specific immersive installation for The Objects in Hangar 2, Seattle Artists Program Exhibition, former Sand Point Way Naval Station, Seattle, curated by Sean Elwood.

Materials: Decommissioned industrial space with galvanized steel framing materials, Frazier River rocks, glass thrift store lamps, curtains, two audio systems

Refuge consisted of two rooms: an entry and an inner chamber. Dimensions: approx. 20' W x 13' H x 50' D.

Participants entering through a narrow corridor of bare steel framing heard a recorded monologue of anxiety and self-recrimination. In the blocked-off sections to either side, shattered glass and other disturbing debris littered the floor.

They emerged through heavy curtains into a safe room arrayed with river rocks and lit by the golden glow of a chandelier made of 58 vintage glass globe lamps, bathed in the soothing sounds of a running stream.

The chandelier is now installed in the lobby of the Northwest Film Forum.

site-specific installation
Project Room, CoCA, Seattle

Sounds of water running over rocks in a stream emanated from a tape deck hidden under the rock pile in the middle of the installation.

site-specific group installation

Footprints in the Vacuum was inspired by Alberto Giacometti's 1932 sculpture, The Palace at 4:00 A.M. "I always loved that piece in the Museum of Modern Art," says Lahti, "and wanted to make a walk-in take on it."

Installed site-specifically at both the FUEL Gallery in Seattle and the Hoffman Gallery at Oregon School of Arts and Crafts (now OCAC) in Portland, Oregon, Footprints was a collaborative project curated by the OK Girls: Edie Carlson, Ingrid Lahti, Harriet Sanderson, and Ruth Tomlinson.

The artists commissioned a soundtrack for the installation, The Palace at 4 AM, by Leo Daedalus.

site-specific installation
RAW SPACE, A.R.C. Gallery, Chicago

Gallery dimensions: 11 ft high, 15 to 21 feet wide, 27 feet deep from entry to windows.

The RAW SPACE gallery was reconfigured and built out for Shelter & Shadow. The area under the columns along the east (right) wall was framed and drywalled to create three small rooms. The doors to these rooms could be locked from within. Each door contained a wide-angle peephole from which participants could look out into the rest of the space.

A larger fourth area was constructed with a framework of galvanized iron construction studs. This open shelter structure worked in opposition to the three rooms. The four spaces together created a four-part narrative.

> Read Artist’s Statement

> Read detailed description of the spaces

site-specific installation
FUEL Gallery, Seattle

Part one of two-part installation, Back & Forth (along with Hideout). Oneiric Shelter was a site-specific, participatory installation at FUEL Gallery in Seattle.

The piece was based on a dream of safety and shelter, creating a space which allowed an expansion of consciousness. In the openness and expansiveness of its framework, Oneiric Shelter was the obverse of its counterpart, Hideout.

The Shelter was built of galvanized steel framing materials, 4100 lbs. of river rocks, a galvanized steel washbasin "pond" filled with water agitated by a waterfall pump, and other details such as a trio of buckets containing lights and rocks.

The lighting in the space shifted continually as the sun moved over the skylight during the course of Seattle's 18-hour June days.

The open framework of Oneiric Shelter was inspired by a roofless birdcage (final image).

site-specific installation
Peter Kirk Gallery, Kirkland, Washington

Second part of two-part installation, Back & Forth (along with Oneiric Shelter). Hideout was a site-specific, participatory piece installed as part of the group show The BRIDGE at Peter Kirk Gallery in Kirkland, Washington, curated by Susan Purves.

Viewers could enter, lock themselves inside, and spy on the gallery through the ten wide-angle peepholes which studded the doors and walls of the structure. The closed-in, paranoid space of Hideout, devoid of natural light, was the obverse of its open counterpart, Oneiric Shelter.

two suites of prints
DILEMMA (1994)
Sadie (1994)

> Read DILEMMA Artist’s Statement

installation
Wonderful World of Art, Seattle

Part of OK GIRLS group exhibition The Good, the Bad, and the Other at the Wonderful World of Art, Seattle. Curators: E. Carlson, I. Lahti, H. Sanderson, R.M. Tomlinson.

Dimensions: 11' H x 6' W x 18' D.

Participants enter HOT/COLD and walk through a corridor with fans cooling them from either side. Beyond the fans is a clear plexiglas door, which leads to the HOT section with chair. Four heat lamps mounted above the padded chair heat the seated participant.

HOT/COLD was developed from the study, COOL (1992). This interactive sculpture consisted of a chair between two rotating fans, offering the opportunity to feel artificial breezes and sense the constant peripheral motion of the fans.

site-specific installation
King County Arts Commission, Seattle

Repression is a multi-room, site-specific piece that was installed in the King County Arts Commission gallery on the 11th floor of the Smith Tower in Seattle.

> Read Artist’s Statement

—

Repression study (1992) led to the development of Repression (1993)

Mixed mediums
Dimensions: 8' x 4'

Photo montage of four images laid out horizontally and repeated in six rows in comic book format. Different panels are selectively overpainted with white latex wall paint, hiding and revealing different images. For example, when the traffic cop is painted out the little boy is free to cry, but when the traffic cop is visible, the little boy is hidden.

site-specific installation
in COUNTER/positions at
OK Hotel, Seattle

Dimensions: two rooms, each 9’ H x 8’ W x 8’ D

The group exhibition COUNTER/positions featured six artists or teams of artists, each given a pair of rooms facing one another across the long corridor on the second floor of the OK Hotel. All the rooms were identical in size: 8' by 8' with 9' ceilings. Some still contained non-functioning sinks.

I turned my rooms into contrasting environments of wet and dry: a study in the experience of menopause.

The WET room

Materials: Ceiling rain drip system, waterproof subfloor, pump; table and chair, household objects

In the WET room, water rained from the ceiling into wineglasses, buckets, bowls and flower pots, filling the entire gallery with quasi-musical percussion. The water dripped through the slatted floor to be pumped back to ceiling, mimicking familiar Seattle cycles of evaporation and precipitation. Viewers exploring the room could stay dry if they were careful.

All in deep magenta, the room reached all the senses at once, creating a mood of leaky, unraveling domesticity. A goldfish swam in its bowl at a table set for one. Hung artworks of deserts and volcanoes evoked a yearning for dryness and heat — which were to be found in the DRY room across the hall.

The DRY room

Materials: Table and chair, household objects, dust

A mirror image of the WET room across the hall, the DRY room was covered in thick dust. It coated the table, chair and wineglass and lay thick on the beige carpet, the threadbare curtains and a desiccated bird in a nest. Hung artworks of lakes, rivers and waterfalls evoked a yearning for water — which was to be found in the WET room across the hall.

Together the two rooms produced the psycho-physical experience of two incompatible extremes.

> Read Artist’s Statement

site-specific installation
in Underground Seattle at
Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA), Seattle

Materials: Framed and dry-walled space painted white, with black tape in 12” grid pattern. Inside, an erratic line of black welded 1” aluminum pipe zigzagged as if trapped in the room.

Dimensions: 8’ H x 8’ W x 8’ D

Viewers stooped to enter the roomthrough either of two small entries. They negotiated their way though this recreation of a childhood nightmare experienced under ether during surgery.

Materials: Steel cable, metal fencing, chicken wire with spray-painted highlights. Installed between two trees.

Dimensions: 11’ H x 11’ W x ½” D

Public sculpture in The Lawn Show: Installations In Nature, Arts East Invitational Show, Marymoor Park, Redmond, WA.

Web of Metal and Light marked the transition from earlier fiber work to large-scale sculpture and installation. Like the rose window of a Gothic cathedral, Web invited nature to fill the space of its transparency.

Photos: Bob Eisenman