When Calista Lyon’s father, an amateur photographer, introduced her to the camera, she immediately fell in love. Lyon, who grew up on a cattle farm in Australia, discovered her interest back in high school, and was inspired by the way an image can tell a story.
“I believe wholeheartedly in the power of images and their ability to share representations of different places, people, experiences, to hold memories or be a mnemonic for a memory,” Lyon says.
This summer, Lyon brings “Breaking Water” to the Riffe Gallery’s A New World: Ohio Women to Watch 2023 exhibition.
This exhibition is a result of a collaboration between the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery and the Ohio Advisory Group of the National Museum of Women in Arts. It features 11 female artists who offer perspectives on alternate realities and ways of thinking.
Lyon studied applied photography at a technical school in Melbourne, Australia before moving to California to complete her undergrad in Studio Art at California State University.
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She then moved to Columbus to study at The Ohio State University, where she received her master’s degree in photography in 2019. She chose to stay in Columbus and now works as a visiting assistant professor of studio art at Kenyon College.
“We had such a good artist community here (in Columbus) that I really didn’t want to leave afterwards,” Lyon says. “It was just really good to me as a city.”
In her installment, Lyon worked with artist Carmen Winant to construct a piece that opens a discussion about water as a connecting force turning the individual into community. Lyon focused on finding images of dams breaking for river restoration efforts, while Winant collected images of women’s water breaking during pregnancy.
The installment features a collection of 21 CRT televisions arranged in a circle showcasing the images in quick succession, creating an all-encompassing effect. Accompanying audio discusses the research conducted alongside the images.
Much of Lyon’s work synthesizes historical images with research within an ecological context to provide a commentary on the climate crisis and the ways in which the U.S. addresses the issue.
“I had very strong feelings from a young age that the way we’re living was not sustainable,” Lyon says. “I felt like I carried that inside me for a long time and there was no way for me to articulate those feelings.”
Lyon’s pieces feature photographic collages that document the issues she seeks to highlight. She meticulously researches her subject, collects artwork and crafts a collage that provides a public archive of historical works framing the issue in a new light.
“(Through my work) I am able to share ideas, thinking, problems, questions with the community that to me are pressing and relevant and are maybe not being told in mainstream media,” she says. “I think of my work as a counter archival practice.”
Lyon’s work doesn’t end with just photography – although that is where she found her initial training. Lyon’s work focuses on putting historical images in conversation with one another and then into the greater context of a larger issue.
“I have moved into photography’s expanded field. … For me, it’s working in interdisciplinary ways with the image. So I use it in performances, in printworks, in community-engaged works that use the form of the image to be able to do something,” Lyon says. “I’m particularly interested in climate grief, ecological despair (and) climate anxiety.”
In addition to the exhibition at Riffe Gallery, Lyon’s work has been displayed at the La Trobe Art Institute in Bendigo, Australia; the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati; the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art; and many other locations.
Katie Giffin is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
