With spring's onslaught of eyeball-pleasing arts happenings, Reed Arts Week (RAW) starts today, with an opening reception at 5 pm. The theme of Might Now, the centerpiece exhibition in this year's student-curated festival of art is an archival one, highlighting works that engage with "the concepts inherent in the words trace, archive, and memoria." That probably sounds hifalutin, unless your tolerance for art jargon is abnormally high. Helpfully, RAW provides clarification: "A trace can leave an imprint of the past; an archive acts to physically preserve the past; and memoria signifies the power of the object as a structure that can monumentalize the memory of an event." The show will feature work from Dan Attoe, Jen Bervin, Jesse Carsten and David Cook, Patricia Esquivias, Lindsay Lawson, Kristie MacDonald, and Margaret Weber.

Among this group, Lindsay Lawson in particular seems worth checking out. The Berlin-based artist makes art that's a motley combo of elements pulled from installation, sculpture, assemblage, performance, and video. In one of her projects, an amateur cast stumbles through a production of Hamlet, perpetually trapped in the play's first scene. And in Hypothetical Lamp Collection, Lawson tests the theory that "When the idea bulb is screwed on, nothing is not a lamp." A few contenders: a clamshell, a newspaper, a blob of putty—all made into lamps! Oh, funny art like this holds a very special place in my heart. Too often, the art world can be a self-serious, cordoned-off place. Projects like this show that it doesn't have to be that way!

Lawson will give an artist talk via Skype tomorrow, Wednesday, March 3, at noon in Reed's Digital Media Lab. Other points of interest include an artist talk from Kristie McDonald, also tomorrow; a puppetry performance from Gregory McNaughton on Saturday; and a musical performance from Aboriginal Flowers, Stephen Steinbrink, and Horselords, also on Saturday at 9 pm.

Might Now is housed at Reed's Theater Annex (5415 SE 28th), with open gallery hours from noon to 5 pm daily during RAW, and student installation hours at the Double Squash Courts are 10 am to 5 pm daily. Everything is free! Full schedule and more info here.