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The art of protecting time-based media with Liz Brown

Sara Butler on Oct 11 2025

“The intricate nature of the work provides so many rich opportunities to connect the artworks in our care with audiences young and old, a pursuit so core to why we are here in museums.”

There are many elements Liz Brown, Director of Objects Conservation at SAM, loves about working in conservation. Each day presents new challenges—including the complexities of preserving artworks involving technology, media, and interactive elements. Among these artworks are Paranoid Mirror (1995), a mixed media video installation by Lynn Hershman Leeson and the subject of Brown’s upcoming talk “Inside and Outside Gallery Walls.”

On October 16, Brown continues the 2025 season of Up Close with Conservators, our member-exclusive lecture series, with an inside look into SAM’s collaborative strategies for preserving time-based media. Before she takes the stage, we talked with Brown about the complicated artwork—its background, preservation, and impact. Plus, Brown shares her favorite aspects of working in conservation (spoiler: there are a lot).

Could you provide a brief description of Paranoid Mirror and how visitors can interact with it?

Paranoid Mirror is an interactive video artwork where the visitor is both the observer and the performer. As the visitor approaches the gilt mirror on the wall, they see themselves reflected in a video that changes as they trigger hidden sensors. The installation then switches between clips, challenging them to question what they are seeing and “looking at.” At the same time, the viewer is captured by a video camera; the live footage is sometimes played back to the viewer in the mirror and simultaneously streamed to a surveillance monitor watched by other visitors. In her 1995 book, Lynn Hershman Leeson shares that the piece is “inspired by the paintings of Jan Van Eyck and in particular the Arnolfini Wedding (1434) … and engages ideas of reflection, tracking, surveillance and voyeurism and uses the viewer as a direct interface.”

This mixed media piece uses older technology, including laserdiscs. What are some of the contemporary tools you use for conserving the original components?

One of the first steps was to learn from Lynn Hershman Leeson which components of the original installation are important to preserve and what could be replaced. to understand the essential performances and aspects of the artwork. We learned, for example, that although video on the 1995 CAV laser disc could be migrated and the laser disc could be replaced, she believed that the current artifacts of age in the video should not be removed because the work’s place and time should not be erased. Once we had a better understanding of her approach, we employed a variety of tools, often drawn from related fields. For example, we use a write blocker developed in forensics to safely examine drives without inadvertently altering any of the information. We also made use of disc imaging tools from software preservation and migration apps from archivists. Additionally, tools such as current video editing software and applications to examine metadata and other aspects under the hood are incredibly helpful.

Preserving this work ensures it can reach future audiences. Why is this piece important in our current moment?

In our current world dominated by screens, selfies, online identities and avatars, and images and information manipulated and real, Paranoid Mirror’s reflections on illusion, identity, seeing and being seen, and youth and age resonate both forward and backward in time.

According to MoMA’s 2024 retrospective of the Hershman work, “One of the world’s most prolific media artists, over five decades Lynn Hershman Leeson has produced an innovative body of work that probes and plays with the complex relationship between humans, technology, and social structures. Her videos navigate the fluid space between perception and truth, constantly exposing our collective and individual biases.”

In preserving this work—though I struggle with word “preserve” in regard to new media artworks—we are not just attempting to maintain a particular piece of hardware or electronics. We also want to ensure the performances of the work continue with its questions and challenges, that the refrain “You are not real” echoes into the future.

What do you like most about working in conservation?

The nature of the work is so multifaceted that it’s difficult to choose one thing—can I choose several and a few more tomorrow? One of the truly magical and inspiring aspects of working with contemporary artworks is the opportunity to work with and hear directly from creators. To be able to learn from the artist how they work, select materials, and would like the work preserved (or not) is a great privilege. Additionally, I love the investigative nature of the work in conservation. Due to the breadth of materials and artworks in the collection, no one day is the same; each day presents new challenges and opportunities to learn, uncover, and discover. And the intricate nature of the work—which draws on so many fields such as chemistry, archeology, art history, imaging, and programming—provides so many rich opportunities to connect the artwork in our care with audiences young and old, a pursuit so core to why we are here in museums.

Hispanic Heritage Month 2025: Explore works from talented artists at SAM

Sara Butler on Oct 8 2025

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! This annual celebration—recognized between September 15 and October 15—honors the contributions and influence of Hispanic and Latinx Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. In honor of the holiday, we’re spotlighting four Hispanic and Latinx American artists with thought-provoking pieces in SAM’s permanent collection.

Alfredo Arreguín

Installation view of “American Art: The Stories We Carry” at Seattle Art Museum, 2025, photo: Chloe Collyer

Alfredo Arreguín was one of the Pacific Northwest’s most prominent Chicano artists. SAM has five of his pieces in our collection, including the striking canvas Four Self-Portraits (1995).

Arreguín painted nearly his entire life, starting his craft at age 9. After graduating from the prestigious Escuela Nacional Preparatoria at the University of Mexico, he moved to Seattle to study architecture, interior design, and art at the University of Washington.

Layered with bright colors, intricate patterns, and hidden symbols, Arreguín’s mosaic masterpieces blend his internal and external surroundings. Through his art, he explored the natural and spiritual environments of both Mexico and the Pacific Northwest, crafting tapestries that reflected his multifaceted identity, cultural heritage, and adopted hometown.

Sadly, Arreguín passed away in 2023—but his legacy lives on at the Seattle Art Museum in our ongoing exhibition “American Art: The Stories We Carry.” (Learn more about Arreguín in our 2023 blog post by Theresa Papanickolas, SAM Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art.)

Isabella Villaseñor

*Grabado en Madera,* mid 20th century, Isabel Villaseñor, Mexican, 1910-1954, Print, Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John Davis Hatch Jr., 44.613, Photo: Elizabeth Mann.

From sculpting to composing, post-revolutionary Mexican artist Isabella Villaseñor was a woman of nearly all creative trades. She is well-known for her woodcut prints, such as Grabado en Madera (1929) in SAM’s permanent collection.

Growing up in Mexico City, Villaseñor inherited a love of popular Mexican music and had an intrinsic knack for writing, winning numerous literary awards. She then pursued art at Centro Popular de Pintura, where she developed her signature style in engravings and paintings.

Her engravings and paintings often featured women in the domestic sphere. Villaseñor’s woodcut print Grabado en Madera depicts three women huddling together in conversation, connecting over personal stories or community gossip. Through her signature linework, shading, and composition, Villaseñor’s dichromatic artwork tells a powerful story of womanhood and connection.

Villaseñor died in her early 40s, but her multifaceted art—including work with revolutionary artist group ¡30-30!—left a major impact.

Paloma Contreras Lomas

Paloma Contreras Lomas, a mixed media artist who uses her work to tackle contemporary issues, particularly those facing her home country of Mexico. She also addresses injustices that resonate universally: gender, violence, inequitable political structures, class differences, post-colonialism, and the destruction of the environment.

Contreras Lomas utilizes multiple types of media in her art, demonstrated in her piece from SAM’s collection, El ciudadano más oscuro (el árbol que mira), which translates to “The darkest citizen (the tree that watches).”

Using graphite, charcoal, pastel, and oil stick, she covers a framed piece of linen canvas with hidden symbols to address stereotypes of Mexican culture. Her work often incorporates the aesthetics of horror films and the macabre, while also using pop culture, color, and cartoon figures that add an ironic and often humorous lens.

Emilio Amero

Emilio Amero was a major figure of the Mexican Modern art movement. Though he only lived in the Pacific Northwest for six years, Amero—a painter, printmaker, muralist, and filmmaker—made a significant impact on Seattle’s art scene and SAM’s collection.

After training as an artist in Mexico City, he worked between Mexico and New York City for many years, including a stint as an assistant to painter Diego Rivera. In 1941, Amero received a teaching fellowship at the University of Washington and then taught at the Cornish College of the Arts.

Some of his pieces were purchased by SAM’s first director, Richard Fuller, as early as 1942. (Today, 46 of his works are in SAM’s collection.) In 1946, Amero received an honorable mention in oil for his painting, Four Female Figures, at the Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists held by SAM. He went on to serve as the jury chairman for several years.

His surrealist works depict scenes that are more metaphorical and allegorical than realistic representations. Amero’s modernism and experimentation with form and composition was influenced by the mural traditions he learned at home, as well as ancient Indigenous art of Mexico.

—Nicole Block, Curatorial Manager of SAM’s permanent collection, and Sara Butler, Marketing Copywriter at SAM