Self-Made: Narratives of Knowing and Being
@ EXPO Chicago Booth #141
600 E Grand Ave, Chicago, IL 60611
Opening Friday, April 25th, from 11PM - 7PM
On view through Sunday, April 27th
Self-Made takes a common phrase often rooted in capitalist ideals of individualism and status—and turns it on its head. Rather than evoke bootstrap myths or self-reliance narratives, this exhibition reimagines the self as something shaped by memory, language, and ancestral presence. Positioned within a postmodern “crisis of confidence,” as theorized by Nancy Partner, the exhibition uses autoethnography as both a methodology and framework to explore the subjective and deeply personal to interrogate the historical and the political.
The exhibition highlights the ways in which students at SAIC are grappling with their own lived experiences to enrich conventional streams of knowledge and archives. These artistic processes are personal explorations of canonical history through documentation, language, material, and sound. In this context, the participating artists contend with the common human experience of remembering; some works relating to direct memories and others constructing imagined ones. Materiality, form, sound, and scale are used not only as formal devices, but as extensions of the artists’ processes of remembrance. Through this exhibition, viewers are invited to consider their own positionality in relation to the works on view—to ask themselves what they remember, how memory shapes understanding, and what narratives they carry within. Self-Made ultimately is not just a presentation of artwork, but a collective reckoning with how personal truths can enrich, amend, and disrupt dominant histories.
Self-Made includes film, painting, sculpture, multimedia, and works on paper made by graduate and undergraduate students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, featuring work by: Amin Pakparvar (MA ‘25 ) and Mehraneh Salimian (MFA ‘25); Matthew Kaufman (MFA ‘25); Pedro Montilla Pineros (MFA ‘25); Rachelle Fierro López (BFA ‘26); Winnie Weiyun Szu (MFA ‘26); Shuyuan Zhou (MFA ‘25); and Mauricio López F. (MFA ‘25). The exhibition is organized by SAIC graduate students in the Spring 2025 ARTHI/ ARTSAD 6110: Advanced Curatorial Practice class taught by Dr. Marin R. Sullivan. Self-Made is co-curated by: Angel Adams (MA ‘25), Atlas Babcock (MA ‘25), Malia Brazil (MA ‘25), Aria Frawley (MA ‘25), Akmaral Kulbatyrova (MA ‘25), Sarah Laxton (MA ‘26), Abreihona Lenihan (MA ‘26), Charlie Nawara (MA ‘25), MinJi Park (MFA ‘25), Arielle Schnur (MA ‘25), and Annabel Severns (MA ‘26).
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Tags: Abreihona Lenihan, Akmaral Kulbatyrova, Amin Pakparvar, Annabel Severns, Aria Frawley, Arielle Schnur, Atlas Babcock, Charlie Nawara, Dr. Marin R. Sullivan. Self-Made is co-curated by: Angel Adams, EXPO Chicago, Malia Brazil, Matthew Kaufman, Mauricio López F., Mehraneh Salimian, MinJi Park, Navy Pier, Pedro Montilla Pineros, Rachelle Fierro López, Sarah Laxton, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Self-Made: Narratives of Knowing and Being, Shuyuan Zhou, Winnie Weiyun Szu
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