Members of LAL (Lise Patt, Antoinette LaFarge, Lorie Erikson) photographed in front of The Museum of Jurassic Technology by the museum’s founder David Wilson. The year was 1991 and the collaborators of LAL were getting ready to disperse to various corners of the western world: Patt to New York City, LaFarge to Bochum, Germany and Erikson to Burlington Vermont. As a parting gift to accompany their last ‘research trip’ to the ‘Jurassic,’ Erikson had distributed white lab coats with Institute of Cultural Inquiry embroidered under each LAL member’s name. In that gesture, an idea was given a form and the Institute began it’s long trek to where it is today.

Three polaroids were shot on that day, one for each member. This image belongs to Antoinette LaFarge and is the only one that caught Patt off-guard (thus, the smile).