Graduate Exhibition One is the culminating presentation of 67 MFA candidates in SAIC’s class of 2023, and an opportunity for them to present new and ambitious work to the public in the SAIC Galleries. Graduate Exhibition One is the first of two graduate exhibitions this spring.

See Gallery Guide and Floor Plans

Visiting SAIC Galleries

SAIC Galleries welcomes the SAIC community and members of the public to visit the galleries in person. Admission is free. Appointments are encouraged. Please schedule your visit here.

*All visitors to SAIC Galleries must show a state-issued picture ID.

SAIC Galleries
33 E. Washington St.
Gallery Hours: Monday–Saturday, 11:00 am–6:00 pm

Performances and Activations

SAGE DYE: March 1, 2, 4, 6, & 8, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm, Lower Level 1

Becs Epstein, Apology Activations: March 1–3, 12:00 pm, and March 4, 7, & 8, 4:00 pm, Lower Level 2

Reid Arowood: March 3, 5:00 pm, and March 4, 4:00 pm, Lower Level 1

Laura Bustamante: March 4, 3:00 pm, Lower Level 2

Yeji Lee, Daily Activations, Lower Level 1

Cassidy Skillman: Daily Activations, Lower Level 1

Self-Curated Groups

Students participating in Graduate Exhibition One were given the option to exhibit together as a self-curated group. There are three self-curated groups within the larger exhibition – re- (again; back; anew; against), Serious Play, and KIN-SHIP OR COW SLIDES TO THE WOODPECKER RIDES TO BED TO RED TO CLUB. Please click on the group titles to visit their pages.

Conceptualizing Care: Notes on SAIC’s Graduate Exhibition One

Graduate Exhibition One, the first of the two graduate shows this spring, features students whose practices have been creatively and emotionally impacted by the ongoing pandemic and the political, cultural, and social developments in Chicago and across the globe. In response, many students began using their artistic practices as a way to reflect on what it means to think about and engage care within their work and as artists. Through these explorations, many of the students’ thesis projects use their creative practice as a method of collective healing. Through their installations, environments, and works, many students ask visitors to question how they visualize care and how they define landscape, kinship, postcolonialism, and globalization. Many students extend an open invitation for visitors to interact with these different definitions of care through work that utilizes sound, movement, scent, touch, and sight.

Additionally, several artists exhibiting in Graduate Exhibition One have taken their prolonged experiences in the remote and virtual spaces and channeled them into immersive worlds and built environments. While the institution has returned to hosting in-person exhibitions and events, many students continue to explore and integrate the digital world into the galleries. The results are new forms of site-specific installations that draw on the intimate environments that these students created for themselves out of necessity over the past two years. These artists have skillfully used technologies like mapped projections, interactive software, and reactive audio to produce gallery-based, immersive experiences that transport visitors into new worlds and draw attention to spaces outside of Chicago.

Within the self-curated exhibitions, performances, activations, and various means of intimate viewing, we see the artists of Graduate Exhibition One adapting to the limitations and engaging in the new possibilities of their art practices to push the boundaries of the gallery space into an interactive experience for all viewers.

Clayton Kennedy and Maya Ortiz Saucedo

Graduate Curatorial Assistants, SAIC Galleries