Photographs of Huntington Beach and Catalina Island, created by Calianne Jones through a process called salt printing with salt collected by Juliann Panehal from those areas, on display at the Roski Graduate Gallery as part of Jones’ “Runoff” exhibit (Vanessa Codilla/USC Wrigley Institute)
Science in the Studio: Experimental photography exhibit captures hidden side of water pollution
When science inspires art, the combination can create new ways for people to see the world and our place in it. A new, Wrigley Institute-sponsored exhibition brings this idea to life through a unique collaboration between scientific research and creative practice.
In 2024, USC Roski M.F.A candidate Callianne Jones and Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellow Juliann Panehal came together to create a mesmerizing body of photographic work that explores the fate of water in and around Los Angeles.
The images, on display in January 2025 at the Roski Graduate Gallery for Jones’s thesis exhibition Runoff and in April at USC’s University Park Campus as part of Climate Forward 2025, were created using a 19th-century photographic process called salt printing.
Deviating from the traditional approach to salt printing, Jones used salt collected by Panehal at Huntington Beach and Catalina Island, where the latter is studying long-term impacts of the 2021 Huntington Beach oil spill. Jones’s goal was for the prints to capture both images and physical traces of Panehal’s study sites. Because the salt was directly sourced from ecosystems affected by oil spills and pollution, the prints are physically and conceptually tied to the environments they reflect.
Panehal, a Ph.D candidate in the USC Dornsife Department of Earth Science, is investigating how the 2021 oil spill affects microbial ecosystems along the Southern California coast. By translating elements of this fieldwork into photographic prints, Panehal and Jones are making a powerful commentary on how human actions can affect delicate ecosystems and how those environments, in turn, can shape us.
“I feel as if my work kind of serves as a platform to explain what’s happening in the environment,” says Jones, who seeks to help others approach environmental science in unconventional ways. “Something that I hope people will take away from the work is more information and insight into bodies of water that they may only know words and data about.”
On the opening night of the Runoff exhibition, that exact scenario unfolded: curious attendees approached Panehal to ask about the underlying science behind the art.
“One of the challenges we face as researchers is how we can effectively communicate our science,” Panehal says. “I think a great way to do that is using opportunities like this–through art. People really do care about what we’re doing, we just have to show them.”
In a full-circle moment, select prints from the project were enlarged and are now on display at the Art Park of the Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC), where Panehal carried out last summer’s research on Catalina Island.
“There is so much extraordinary possibility when we put artists and scientists together and give them the opportunity to collaborate and create,” says Wrigley Institute Curator Allison Agsten, who worked closely with Jones and Panehal to make their vision come to life.
The shift in setting from Los Angeles to Catalina transforms the viewing experience of the prints, adding a deeper layer of context, Agsten says: “I hope to provide a different way for those of us who have seen the works before to understand them, and then a brand-new experience for visitors who will be on the island over the summer.”
In the enlarged prints, visitors will more clearly see impurities from heavily contaminated areas. Among these visitors will be USC undergraduate students enrolled in the Wrigley Institute’s Julymester course ENST 320a: Water and Soil Sustainability, which explores solutions to issues such as water pollution.
Located in the landscape that birthed the artwork, the WMSC exhibit invites viewers to reflect on the relationship between their own impact, the images, and the environment–all while standing in view of the water where the salt originated. The project highlights what can arise at the intersection of art and science: a new dimension to inform today’s climate conversations.
Watch the video below to hear directly from Jones and Panehal about the artwork and their collaboration.