No prior experience required, all materials will be provided.


In this 90minute introductory workshop, participants will learn about the cyanotype process and create their own unique cyanotype prints! Developed in 1842, the cyanotype process — so named because of the characteristic blue color of the prints — is one of the oldest photographic techniques. Inspired by early cyanotype practitioners like the botanist Anna Atkins, participants will gather flora from Nichols Arboretum to create dynamic compositions of leaves, nuts, and flowers. Pre-coated cyanotype paper and all necessary supplies provided. The workshop is open to all UM students, faculty, and staff; no prior experience required.

Artist Bio: Angela Chen 陳勇氣 is a Taiwanese-American photo-based artist, writer, and educator from the ethnoburbs of the San Gabriel Valley, California. Incorporating personal narrative, alternative photographic processes, and recycled and found material, her practice enacts what she calls thinking and making with the ground–a process of sustained attention to place that is rooted in the photo walk. Her work foregrounds what is typically in the background, showing how what we consider “beneath us” comprise multiple, entangled, more-than-human kin. She often prints her photographs on fabric dyed with foraged, fallen material, such as nuts and oak galls, immersing her images in the specific ecologies in which they were taken. Angela is a graduate of the Yale School of Art, where she was an Alice Kimball Traveling Fellow and Art and Social Justice Grantee.

This workshop is presented in partnership by U-M’s Matthei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, and the Arts Initiative.