Exhibition

SVA presents “Inhabited by” an exhibition of thesis work by five senior students in the BFA Visual and Critical Studies (VCS) program. The exhibition, curated by artist and alumnus Kayla Gibbons (BFA 2011 Fine Arts), will be on view Sunday, February 2, through Tuesday, February 18, 2025, at the SVA Flatiron Gallery and VCS Flatiron Project Space, 133/141 West 21st Street, 1st floor, New York City.

A statement from the curator reads:

“To inhabit is the need to belong somewhere; to exist or be grounded in place as an antidote to the prevailing alienation that characterizes contemporary existence. But what inhabits us, as we sink into the seductive embrace of place and allow it to impress on us equally? Place is at once temporal, spatial, personal, and political, and represents both memory and possibility. We are inhabited by the legacies of our ancestors while also engaging with dominant cultural narratives that influence how we see ourselves and others—in a colonized or expropriated place, we grapple with histories that have been marginalized or erased. Politically, we are inhabited by systems of power and control that structure our identities, opportunities, and relationships, manifesting in our worldview and our individual actions. We are inhabited by the crossroads of all these forces, continuously negotiating space between the inner self and an external world that seeks to define us.”

Each of the five artists included in the exhibition is inhabited by the call to create; propelled by the desire to foster human connection through their varied material and conceptual inquiries. “Inhabited by” includes work by Emma Pierce, Ke, Lee Coyne, Lester Jingyi, and MARS. The artists have prepared the following short statements about their work:

Emma Pierce: “Art, to me, is life. It transcends any singular medium or tool. The art I produce is not about recreating moments but instead captures them as they unfold. Each piece I create is a direct response to the moment I’m immersed in, and my process is a constant search for a way to represent the essence of a fleeting experience, to translate it in a way that can be seen and remembered."

Ke: “My practice offers a multidisciplinary, non-binary perspective on history and the past, bringing historical memory into dialogue with contemporaneity. Through sculpture, installation, photography, and performance, I reshape the boundaries between things and people, between history and the present, and between internal systems and the external world. In a contemporary state of displacement and uncertainty, I attempt to grasp the present.”

Lee Coyne: "In the past few years, I’ve spent time thinking about connections between the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual. In my work, I lead with my intuition; I do what I feel like I need to do, I do what I want to do. I take in the life around me, the influence of growing up Catholic, and more recently, the horrors of genocide in Gaza, Sudan, and many other countries in the global south. My work is a direct reaction to the accumulations of my life up until now, and what it may become in the near future."

Lester Jingyi: “My practice traverses the space between the poetic and the objective, the pensive and the light-hearted, the personal and the political, and the formal and the conceptual. In Shadow of Time, a 3,129-inch-long looping thread embodies the illusion of time, painstakingly created through a meditative, 24-hour crochet process. In 心田 (Heart Field), the embroidered bicornuate uterus on a Ginkgo leaf represents the negotiation between nature, objecthood, and personal history. The work balances formal precision with evocative imagery, both expressing my voice as an artist and tickling the viewer’s imagination to invite free play.”

MARS: “My work as a Latina Americana is deeply rooted in themes of belonging, resilience, and an ancestral connection to the land. Through embroidery, multicolored sculpture, symbolic imagery, poetry, and video, I explore the complexities of migration, culture, and the sacrifices of my family, including the Indigenous heritage passed down through my grandparents. Each piece is a reclamation of identity and a celebration of shared humanity, blending ritual, memory, and the richness of my heritage.”

On the occasion of the opening on February 6, MARS will present a performance entitled “Bailando Sin Fronteras” at 7:00pm. 

The SVA Flatiron Gallery and Flatiron Project Space is open Monday through Saturday, 10:00am – 6:00pm.