Presented by MA Curatorial Practice

MA Curatorial Practice Year-End Exhibitions

April 13 - 26, 2023

Reception

Thu, Apr 13; 6:00 - 9:00pm

MA Curatorial Practice presents year-end exhibitions by program fellows.


Each show is on view Thursday, April 13 – Wednesday, April 26, with an opening reception on Thursday, April 13, 6:00 – 9:00pm. The Pfizer Building is open Monday – Friday, 10:00am – 6:00pm, for scheduled viewings. To schedule a viewing appointment, please see individual exhibition details.

Feral Echoes

An illustration in black and white of various coral with a Coral Dictionary under them

Chang Yuchen, Coral Dictionary, 2020-ongoing

“Feral Echoes” traces nearly forgotten histories through the presence of ghosts—remains of species, fragments of languages, residues of violence—that haunt ruined and reshaped landscapes. Collaborating with human and nonhuman agencies, the artists question linear, singular, anthropocentric world-making and reconstruct narratives from the elements excavated in their archival and field research to evoke ignored connections between culture and ecology and reveal deep planetary entanglements.


Artists include Alchemyverse (Bicheng Liang and Yixuan Shao), Linnéa Gad, Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee, Au Sow Yee and Chang Yuchen.

Curated by Yindi Chen.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact ychen140@sva.edu.

Transcending the Ideal: Reimagining Femininity and its Relationship to Power

Woman with pink hair sitting between a large prescription bottle and large donuts

Annie Chen Ziyao, Ms. Meta Meta, 2021

“Transcending the Ideal: Reimagining Femininity and its Relationship to Power” explores self-representation in our technology-infused consumerist economy, analyzing the intersection of the media and technology to uncover how social networks, image saturation and social stereotypes influence ideals of femininity, modes of self-representation and the categorization of bodies. By analyzing how ideational images of feminine identity act as a primary source for constructing self-identity in the mediascape, “Transcending the Ideal” surveys the systemic limitations of self-imaging, the cultural axioms shaping dominant ideologies informing one’s autonomy and the impact consumer culture has on self-representation. The included works address themes of disembodiment and sociopolitical power, engaging with technology, visual media and the body to uncover how structures of control and privilege underwrite feminine identity and agency. 


Artists include Svetlana Bailey, NARCISSISTER, Ryan Trecartin, Elzie Williams III, Qinru Zhang and Annie Chen Ziyao. 

Curated by Virginia Ingram.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact vingram@sva.edu.

Human and Nature: Turning Conflict into Harmony

Horseshoe crab with an instrument handle attached to a white block

Kazumi Tanaka, Bloodless, 2021

“Human and Nature: Turning Conflict into Harmony” brings together a selection of the four artists’ wide-ranging works in sculpture, photography, installation and printing that explore themes of rethinking humanity’s relationship with the surrounding natural world. The exhibition focuses on each artist’s observation and relationship with the natural environments, such as lands, plants, animals and suburban inhabitant areas, to address how nature is essential to us. Kazumi Tanaka’s work features tiny musical instruments incorporating numerous animal remains, such as animal skin, animal skulls, snail shells, seashells and her own hair, to create functional and aesthetic effects with the remains. Tanaka’s work reconnects the lost bond between our society and nature and highlights the principles of repairing, restoring and preserving nature.


Artists include Tatiana Arocha, Shuyi Cao, Ming-Jer Kuo and Kazumi Tanaka.

Curated by Tzu-Ying (Naomi) Chan.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact tchan34@sva.edu.

when the concrete meets the sea

People standing along the beach looking at skyline

Sarah Cameron, Sunde’s 36.5/New York Estuary

The artists in “when the concrete meets the sea” work in, around and with the waterways that surround New York City. Their practices establish lines of kinship between local aquaculture and the human participants, demonstrating the integral role art making and collectivity play in raising ecological awareness. 


Artists include Simone Johnson, Kin to the Cove Collective and Sarah Cameron Sunde.

Curated by Caroline Taylor Shehan.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact cshehan@sva.edu.

Feeding On Illusions

Multicolor abstract image

Deeya Bhugra, Is There Anywhere You Aren’t, 2022

Credit: Image courtesy of the artist

“Feeding On Illusions” is about the surrealist and feminist discontent with the existing ways that we categorize things that were taken for granted in a reality that derives from problematic practices of our current condition, utilitarian logic, identity politics, narrative bias and over-simplification of differences. It extends the discussion into two directions: a balanced and uncategorized reality that lives in the ideal vision and a disordered and discomfortable reality that is formed by actual experiences. It explores the possibility of transcending categories through bodily and mental experiences and their potential to break down boundaries.



Artists include Deeya Bhugra, Anna Ting Möller, Mosa(Zijun Zhao), Julie Stavad and Vivian Vivas.

Curated by Wanhang Chao.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact .

De(con)struction: Ruins in Reverse

explosion in city along river with mountains in the background

Feng Li, Relocation and Renewal: The Story of Millions of Migrants in the Three Gorges Over 30 Years, 2002

Credit: Image courtesy of the artist

“De(con)struction: Ruins in Reverse” brings together a group of artists whose works explore how human beings, as a combination of animals, fantasists and computers, experience and comprehend the ever-changing nature of cosmology. The exhibition examines the fragments of modernization through evolving terrain and exposes the complexity of capital modernization in border-making, abandonment, displacement, technological construction and ecological destruction. Through photographs, archives, performances, poetry and video the artists propose a possibility of reshaping fluid and mobile fragments that will be reconstructed in developing landscapes. “De(con)struction: Ruins in Reverse” not only presents how the actual environment and ecology of the homelands of displaced people have been transformed on a massive scale but also seeks artworks and witnesses from artists and others around the world.


Artists include Samuel Brzeski, Feng Li, Anna Zilahi/Laura Szári/Varsányi Szirének, Noa Yekutieli and Hai Zhang.

Curated by Yuyue (Eunice) Chen.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact .

Your Head is a Houseboat

Recycled textile sculpture made of thread, batting and found steel. It is a bunch of different colored fabrics sewn together to create a top heavy blob that is sitting on a stool.

Hannah Washburn, "Introvert," Recycled textiles, thread, batting, found steel

“Your Head is a Houseboat” explores the tension and duality between the physical and psychological roles that forge the foundations for locations of refuge and comfort. It recognizes that the creation of a safe space could be as simple as a group of people with shared ideas coming together. The exhibition has a variety of symbolic components and storylines with social and occasional political resonances. The human body, its dimensions, the places it inhabits, the narratives that enclose it, and the theater or public and private spectacle that wraps around it all serve as the starting points for all artworks included in this exhibition. It aims to invoke visceral reactions within the body and highlight unconventional or otherwise strange relationships and interactions between humans and objects in the spectrum of the uncanny. Each work finds itself both above and below the scale of human likeness, causing perverse familiarity and cognitive dissonance. A dustpan and sweeping brush with human fingers, a stool topped with a bulbous textile structure, isolated Pinocchios, a ceramic human head, and more, can be found in “Your Head is a Houseboat.”


The artworks in “Your Head is a Houseboat” were selected to elicit a variety of emotions, from glum to ecstatic, depending on one’s state of mind and each individual’s internal histories. Viewers are invited to take cues from these works: life demands a bit of contortion, which is to say, a little imagination.


Artists include Fanny Allie, Capucine Bourcart, Hamza Kirbas, Ailyn Lee, Meiting Li, Marianna Peragallo and Hanna Washburn.

Curated by Uttara Parekh.


To schedule an appointment to view the exhibition, contact uparekh@sva.edu.

We Used to Kneel in the Dirt: An Exploration of Ritual

Mixed media, including cotton-covered wire, acrylic, maps, clay, paper, encaustic, styrofoam, moss, branches, found toys, ceramics, and debris

Karen Margolis, Synthetic Garden, 2021-on going, mixed media, including cotton-covered wire, acrylic, maps, clay, paper, encaustic, styrofoam, moss, branches, found toys, ceramics and debris

“We Used to Kneel in the Dirt: An Exploration of Ritual” explores the natural human urge to seek ritual and the way our environments shape ritualistic practices. Ritual is deeply entwined within the spiritual and the material, the self and the outer world, the mystical and the mundane. The practice of ritual is born from early human experiences of the natural world. Increasing modes of consumption and industry have formed a new environment, shifting our interactions with each other and the quotidian. Rituals, molded by culture and identity, can be a purposeful repetitive movement, a sacred rite, a meditation or a daily habit. Through representations of ritual in this collection of video, sculpture, painting and performance, humanity’s search to relate to and communicate with the macrocosm of the universe is revealed. 


Participating artists include Cui Fei, Mahmoud Hamadani, Tyson Houseman, Davina Hsu, Karen Margolis, Nicholas Oh, A Young Yu and Zeyu Xue.

Curated by Diana Colón, Mingying Lu, Yuxuan Sun and Kexun Zhang. Instructed by Noam Segal.


This exhibition will be open for viewing Friday, 2:00 – 6:00pm, and Saturday – Sunday, 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm, by appointment only. To schedule a viewing appointment, contact ritualexplorationmacp66@gmail.com.


Free and open to the public