Visiting Artist Lecture Series

2026 Visiting Artist Lecture Series

The Visiting Artist Lecture Series invites artists, critics and curators from around the world, loosely linking them by theme of a particular interest.

Lisa Jarrett: Migration Studies

Artwork by Lisa Jarret, (No. 45, In the future there was always a place for us, parts I (5

_{(No. 45, In the future there was always a place for us, parts I (5 "un-braids") and II (7 woven panels) 7-panels, mixed media, kanekalon 26" hair woven into Kozo paper and braided, Yasutomo Metallic Gold Black Ink, acrylic, 217" W x 10' H (height variable)}

Exhibition On View at the SFCC Fine Art Gallery: April 6‑May 6, 2026

Free and open to the public, this series available through partnership between Eastern Washington University and Spokane Falls Community College. Additional support for this program comes from the Associated Student Government at SFCC and the Sahlin Fund at Spokane Colleges Foundation. The exhibition is possible with the Ford Family Foundation Grant.

Eastern Washington University logo

“Migration Studies (2018-present) is an ongoing project. I work with drawing, sculpture, and installation to examine hair care and beauty routines within Black culture as a bridge to themes about inventing our own survival. These routines are rituals wherein we claim beauty standards existing beyond and before dominant narratives. I use the tools of these ritual practices as drawing materials whose histories both trace and extend our lost languages and homelands. These material and formal choices reflect my broader interest in repetition and reproduction as tools of consumer culture and cultural preservation. I am curious about how our personal/private routines (and the attendant products and purchases) live within our imaginations, conversations, and stories while also connecting us to our collective past and future. The art object is the transformative mechanism by which different systems of value become visible and knowable.”

Events

Exhibition On View at the SFCC Fine Art Gallery: April 6-May 6, 2026

SFCC Artist Lecture: May 5, 2026 at 11:30-12:30 Location: sn-w’ey’-mn Building 24, Room 110

Closing Reception at the SFCC Fine Art Gallery: May 5 from 12:30-1:00 Location: Lobby, sƛ̓x̣etkʷ Fine and Applied Arts Building 32

EWU Artist Lecture: May 6, 2026 at 12:00 PST Location: Eastern Washington University Art Building, Room 116

Artist Bio

Lisa Jarrett (she/her) is an artist working at/from intersections of social and visual forms. Her practice considers the politics of difference within a variety of settings including: schools, landscapes, fictions, racial imaginaries, studios, communities, museums, galleries, walls, mountains, mirrors, floors, rivers, and prisms. She recently discovered that her primary medium is questions; the most urgent of which is: What will set you free?

She is co-founder/director of projects like KSMoCA (Dr MLK Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art); the Harriet Tubman Middle School Center for Expanded Curatorial Practice in NE Portland, OR; and the collective Art 25: Art in the 25th Century.

Lisa exists and makes work within the African Diaspora. She lives in Portland, Oregon where she coauthors social practice projects and continues her 17+ year art investigation into Black hair and its care in various forms. She is Professor of Community and Context Arts at Portland State University's Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design where she leads the Art + Social Practice MFA program.

All Visiting Artist Lecture Series events are free and open to the public.