School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “Sympoietic Encounters: Making With-in the Sixth Great Extinction,” an exhibition of animation, drawing, painting and performance by 13 students, curated by Yindi Chen and Maria Markham. The exhibition will be on view from Thursday, January 26, through Monday, February 13, at the SVA Gramercy Gallery, 209 East 23rd Street, New York City.

This exhibition portrays systems that interconnect human, plant and animal life, including personal experiences and histories of ritualistic practices between indigenous cultures, non-human beings and the planet. “Sympoietic Encounters” centers on “worlding-with,” the anthropological concept from scholar Donna Haraway, which postulates that the earth's ecosystems—human and not—interdependently give meaning to and among each other. The bonds and intimacies that the artworks reveal invite viewers to rediscover life beyond the human and strive to make, rather than extinguish it.

The well-being of the global community exists in perilous entanglement with the human destruction of other-than-human species: deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change and other catastrophic events such as the global pandemic. Humanity afflicts itself as anxiety, loneliness and isolation continually amplify. These ecological and social crises demand that humankind reconsider serving the short-sighted, self-centered “us” at the expense of all living beings. Across 2D, 3D and multimedia-based practices, these artists imagine what “could be” if society held a more holistic perspective toward the world.

Artists featured in this exhibition are Capucine Bourcart (MFA 2023 Fine Arts), Melanie Elyse Brewster (MFA 2024 Art Practice), Lulu Luyao Chang (MFA 2024 Fine Arts), Dana Donaty (MFA 2024 Art Practice), Jamie Gustavson (MFA 2024 Fine Arts), Erin Hayde (MFA 2024 Fine Arts), James Jaxxa (MFA 2023 Fine Arts), Maria Markham (MFA 2023 Art Practice), Grace McCoy (MFA 2024 Art Practice), Kun Kyung Sok (MFA 2024 Fine Arts), Josh Stein (MFA 2024 Art Practice), Jerry E. Strohkorb (MFA 2024 Art Practice) and Luis Valenzuela (MFA 2024 Fine Arts).

Juried exhibitions are a way for SVA students to recognize the achievements of their most distinguished classmates. Artists are selected from a large pool of applicants to the annual SVA Galleries call for entries, whose submissions undergo a rigorous examination of presented materials, including documentation of work and artist statements.

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