Joint Workshop: Seaweed Foraging with Alanna Keiffer + Cyanotypes with Oriana Poindexter

Saturday June 14, 2025, from 9:00am - 1:00 pm

Newport, Oregon - exact location provided after registration

Join Alanna Kieffer, marine biologist and forager, and Oriana Poindexter, marine biologist and photographic artist, for an in-depth seaweed cyanotype workshop, including both fresh seaweed collection as well as making cyanotypes with your harvest! This workshop will teach participants the basics of creating a cyanotype print using freshly harvested native seaweed species. You will learn ecology of Oregon’s rocky shores, sustainable harvest of seaweeds, and the history and technique of creating cyanotypes, all while harvesting your own seaweed and creating your own cyanotype prints to take home.

Start on the beach at Seal Rocks, an abundant and diverse seaweed site, where Alanna Kieffer will provide an introduction to the ecology of the Pacific Northwest, including tides, general oceanography, seasonal ocean conditions and identification of native seaweed species. Alanna will demonstrate how to sustainably harvest seaweed and participants will get to harvest their own seaweed to use in their prints. 

Then we’ll head just above the high tide line, where Oriana Poindexter, California-based photographer and marine scientist, will dive into the fundamentals of this early photographic process (developed in the 1840s!), its history and contemporary use, and will culminate with each participant creating three of their own original cyanotype prints - usually something frame worthy.

The resulting prints are records of the state of the ocean and your creative process on that particular day, recorded in the blue and white palette of the sea itself. Cyanotype is an alternative photographic process used to create photographic prints in the distinctive shade of Prussian blue and white without the use of a camera, exposed with the sun and developed in water.

With the collection of living seaweeds in Oregon only runs from March 1 - June 15th. Now is your chance to make cyanotypes using freshly harvested specimens! If you have materials you’d like to bring to use for printing (sentimental objects, dried botanicals, etc), please feel free to bring them. 

All ages are welcome. Children below the age of 16 must be accompanied by a ticketed parent or guardian.

Oriana is in Newport, Oregon for Summer 2025 as the Artist-in-Residence at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, where she’s collaborating with reserachers to create an exhibit at HMSC, opening in August 2025.