This summer, SVMoA’s BIG IDEA project “From the Colour of Its Bloom” explores the landscapes and history of the nearby Camas Prairie. 

The exhibition will include a commissioned installation of photography-based works and wallpaper from New York-based artist Daniel Gordon, filling the Project Room gallery and immersing viewers in the prairie’s diverse ecosystems, varied textures and vibrant palette. 

This summer, SVMoA’s BIG IDEA project “From the Colour of Its Bloom” explores the landscapes and history of the nearby Camas Prairie. 

SVMoA has invited Portland-based artist MK Guth to lead a free flag-painting workshop for people of all ages. Participants will paint a small flag with their personal interpretation of the Camas Lily, and SVMoA will hang the community flags in their summer exhibition. We’ll be releasing details on how to participate soon!

This summer, SVMoA’s BIG IDEA project “From the Colour of Its Bloom” explores the landscapes and history of the nearby Camas Prairie. 

The exhibition will include a commissioned project by internationally-known photographer Anthony Hernandez, who divides his time between Los Angeles and Fairfield, Idaho. We’re looking forward to sharing his work made on the prairie in July!

This summer, as part of a BIG IDEA project exploring the landscapes and history of Idaho’s Camas Prairie, SVMoA has commissioned artist Sopheap Pich to create a large-scale sculpture celebrating the Camas Lily and its bulb, which has been an important food for the Shoshone and Bannock people for centuries.

Check out these photos of Sopheap’s sculpture in process. We’re looking forward to celebrating the installation of his Camas Lily sculpture this July!

The internationally famous modernist artist Joaquin Torres-Garcia ,whose work is featured in our spring BIG IDEA project, Free Play, was also a toy designer who marketed his toys under the brand name Aladdin Toys. Torres-Garcia taught drawing at a school in Barcelona in the 1910s, when he came to believe in the importance of play for child development and education.

Consisting of multiple parts that children can arrange into different groupings, his transformable wooden toys reflected his Constructivist aesthetic and also his belief in making toys that allow children to express their creativity while building knowledge. Visitors to Free Play can see original Torres-Garcia toys, and play with contemporary reproductions of his toys.

Our spring BIG IDEA project, Free Play, looks at open-ended play as an important tool for creativity, self-expression and building community. The project was inspired in part by the work of the internationally known sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi. The Museum's Project Room gallery is filled with Noguchi's drawings and models for play equipment and play spaces, all borrowed from the Noguchi Museum in New York. 

One of the most compelling Noguchi works in Free Play is Play Mountain (1933, cast 1977), a model for an unrealized outdoor play space Noguchi designed for New York City.