Jeff O’Brien
Curator
Ph.D., University of British Columbia, Canada
M.A., University of British Columbia, Canada
B.A., University of Victoria, Canada
Jeff O’Brien is an art historian and curator whose work takes the archive as its central problem: what images and histories archival systems make visible, and what they suppress or fail to record. He is curator of MIRL, the Material / Image Research Lab in the Department of History of Art & Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he leads interdisciplinary projects that investigate the shifting relationship between digital images, analogue objects, and the archives that structure meaning. His ongoing research on contemporary art and visual culture in the Middle East examines how artists mobilize lens-based practices and archival materials to interrogate questions of visibility, representation, and the conditions under which bodies, histories, and communities appear or disappear. This research draws on sustained engagement with the Arab Image Foundation, Ashkal Alwan, the Sursock Museum in Beirut, and Darat al Funun in Amman, where he held a fellowship in Modern and Contemporary Arab Art. He was a Liu Scholar at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, and has held a Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is co-editor of What Are Our Supports? (Information Office, 2022), a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. He serves on the editorial board of Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, has acted as juror for the California Arts Council and the J.M.K. Innovation Prize, and has presented his research across the United States, Canada, and the Middle East.
jeffobrien@ucsb.edu
jeffobrien.com
orcid.org/0009-0007-0055-6171
arthistory.ucsb.edu/people/jeff-obrien
Christine Fritsch
Assistant Curator
M.A., Art History, Pennsylvania State University
B.A., Art History, The Ohio State University
B.A., German, The Ohio State University
cfritsch@ucsb.edu
805.893.7403
Project collaborators
MIRL is the research and teaching lab of the whole Department of History of Art & Architecture, and every member of the department is welcome to work with us. Listed here are collaborators on current MIRL projects, from within the department and beyond.
Veronica Bodenstein
Research Technologist
MIRL Tools; Ways of Seeing; Documenting Ancient Americas Objects and Artworks
Alicia Boswell
Assistant Professor, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Carol J. Mackey Archive; Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu; Documenting Ancient Americas Objects and Artworks
Juan Cobo Betancourt
Associate Professor, Department of History, UCSB; PI, Archives, Memory, and Preservation Lab (AMPL)
Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu
María Lumbreras
Assistant Professor, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Eleven Days: A Counter-Archive of Mediterranean Santa Barbara; Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu
María Minuesa Sicilia
PhD student, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Eleven Days: A Counter-Archive of Mediterranean Santa Barbara
Current student researchers
Much of MIRL’s work is carried out by students. Undergraduates join us through for-credit internships (ARTHI 192C, or the shared AD&A-MIRL digitization internship, ARTHI 192A/B), contributing across our projects: documenting modern and contemporary California Native art under consent-based protocols, developing and testing the MIRL Tools suite and running 3D analysis of object scans, forensic and archival investigation of Santa Barbara’s built environment, and digitizing fragile materials for the AD&A Museum. Graduate students contribute through their own research and training, particularly in archival practice and digital preservation. The skills students build here carry into their further study and careers, and their contributions are credited on each project. Each entry below names the project the student works on and the quarters of their internship; see the projects page for the projects themselves.
Camille Campain
AD&A/ADC-MIRL Digitization Intern, Fall 2026
Moises Guerrero Gallegos
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Winter 2026, Spring 2026, Fall 2026
Jules Pelayo
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Fall 2026
Grace Santana
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Fall 2026
Grace Veiga
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Fall 2026
Alumni
Graduate students
Anahit Galstyan
PhD student, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Color Film Emergency Project
Alida Jekabson
PhD student, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu
Iman Salty
PhD student, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Color Film Emergency Project
Nisha Shanghavi
PhD student, Department of History of Art & Architecture, UCSB
Color Film Emergency Project
Undergraduate students
Jiwoo Choi
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Winter 2024
Kay Chung
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Spring 2024, Fall 2024
Hailee Corbin
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Winter 2024
Mia Craik-Buxton
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Spring 2024
Izzy Devlin
Research Assistant, Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu, and Documenting Ancient Americas Objects and Artworks, Spring 2025
Kylie Hamuel
Research Assistant, Documenting Ancient Americas Objects and Artworks, Spring 2025
Daniel Hibbert
Research Assistant, 35mm slide digitization and cataloguing, Winter 2025
Milo Katz
Research Assistant, McConnel Fabulations, Winter 2024
Silvia Luo
Research Assistant, Documenting Ancient Americas Objects and Artworks, Winter 2025, Spring 2025
Callan Nowacki
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Winter 2024
Reese Raygoza
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Winter 2026
Abigail Roberts
Research Assistant, Documenting Ancient Americas Objects and Artworks, Fall 2025
Chris Schmider
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Spring 2026
Leili Shirvani
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Fall 2024, Winter 2025
Emily Sullivan
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Fall 2023
Kaitlyn Taylor
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Winter 2026
Miles Trachtenberg
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Spring 2025
Jaret Valera
Research Assistant, California Native American Modern Art Archive, Winter 2025, Spring 2025, Fall 2025
Lucas Vance
Research Assistant, Carol J. Mackey Archive, Winter 2024
Past project collaborators
Collaborators on MIRL projects that have concluded or are on pause.
Adelaida Ávila
UX/UI, web design and development, and digital communication specialist, Neogranadina
Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu, 2025 to 2026
Camilla Falanesca
PhD student, Department of History, UCSB
Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu, 2025 to 2026
Santiago Muñoz Arbeláez
Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin; Co-founder, Neogranadina
Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu, 2025 to 2026
Pilar Ramírez Restrepo
PhD candidate, Department of History, UCSB
Digital Storytelling: Haptic Khipu, 2025 to 2026
Sonja Sekely-Rowland
Color Film Emergency Project consortium
Jacqueline Spafford
Color Film Emergency Project consortium