2025 Master of Fine Arts in Photography
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Generating Places, Placing Generations.
Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez
We all come from somewhere and someone. Our lives are spent figuring out how our identity connects to—or is disconnected from—a homeland and a family. We reject homes, adopt new homes, resent old homes. We miss our families, love our families, hate our families, remember our families, forget our families. We create or collect objects, preserve them, break them, give them away. We migrate, scatter, commune, refuge, assimilate, or fight to stay where we belong.
Displacement can take place in a number of ways. We can be displaced from a land entirely, or displaced while still located within a land. We can be displaced from our families, our family home, or our family history. We can be displaced because of ideas, beliefs, violence. We can feel displaced emotionally because of trauma or trying to fit where we don’t belong.
Everything is generational. We have our ancestors that come before us and our descendants after us, whether related by blood or not. There are versions of ourselves, of our communities, of places, of objects. Generations are as certain as the passage of time. We place generations within timeframes, or frames of any kind.
What does it mean to generate a place? Most obviously, it can mean to produce a place, or perhaps imagine it. In the age of artificial intelligence, it can mean to compile data to generate an image of a place. But artificially generated images come from—or are stolen from—someone else’s images. Studying photographic art is perhaps more important than ever. The artists in this catalog generate places by placing generational experiences into them. They produce art that can only come from human experiences.
Tanya Shah finds personal connections to places she ventures to locate and carefully photograph. Selena Kearney covers places captured in archival photographs that depict the forced assimilation of communities indigenous to Turtle Island. Berkley Reddick plays with photography processes to awaken memories of people and places in her homes and beyond. Kyle Dunn photographs places that were once queer safe spaces, showing how new generations of queer communities can connect to them. Hanora Lincoln uses alternative photographic processes on personal items to reveal the memories of people, places, and experiences they hold. Serena Beggs brings together installation, photographic processes, video, and a recorded conversation with her mom to depict the place where she was sexually assaulted. Lili Xie uses humor and cultural satire in her photographs to explore gender norms passed through families over time, as well as imagination and memory around places. Hugo Amarales experiments with places, imagery, and cultural iconography related to Mexican American communities in Chicago and Los Angeles. Leonardo Gabriel do Amaral interrogates the relationship of Brazil and the United States through the media he grew up consuming. Lizzie Moo employs
photography, projection mapping, sewing, and more to explore politics in the United States. Pedro Albertini photographs small things he collects in the places around him and objects he makes to observe movement. Yudie Zhang photographs artificial places she arranges to explore how sentimentality is produced in images. Zhongxuan Niu speaks through the visual languages of love—her parents’ wedding photographs—and K-pop to balance fantasy, reality, and nostalgia. Shuyuan Zhou’s work is located between her hometown in East Asia, her current location in Chicago, and her poetry. Mark Wang makes images, videos, and installations inspired by his childhood memories and cultural history. Haru Andersen reinterprets traces of postwar places, specifically Japan, where her family history is intertwined. YI-CHANG YANG’s practice spans photography and sound design, but his photographs specifically engage with family memories of ancestral homelands. Lauren Bertelson pushes the limits of photographic representation to center the matrilineal connections in her family photographs. James Baroz’s cameraless methods represent paternal connections, masculine archetypes, and relationships to places. Zixi Wang fades memories of her grandmother into a photographic image.
Tanya Shah
Selena Kearney
Berkley Reddick
Kyle Dunn
Hanora Lincoln
Serena Beggs
32 36 40 44 48 52 08 12 16 20 24 28
Zhongxuan Niu
58 62 66 70 74 78 82 86
Lizzie Moo
Lili Xie
Yudie Zhang
Tanya Shah (b. 1997, Mumbai) is a Hong Kong and Chicago based visual artist. Shah received her Bachelor of the Arts from Dartmouth College in Computer Science and Studio Art with High Honors. Her work has been nationally exhibited in venues such as the Jaffe-Friede Gallery in New Hampshire and Praxis Gallery in Minnesota. She has also been exhibited internationally at The Holy Art Gallery in London. She has worked as a Teaching Assistant at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan, as a Studio Assistant to Letha Wilson amongst other artists, and as a Gallery Assistant in Hong Kong and Los Angeles.
Untitled (Caldwell Woods)
Untitled (La Bagh Woods)
Untitled (Forest Glen Preserve), Archival Inkjet
Untitled (Willow Springs Woods) Archival
My relationship with darkness and nature is complicated and personal. I spent years looking in these places for solace and an escape, and now return for similar purposes, almost ritualistically. The landscapes I choose to lose myself in are like mirrors to me, existing in order for me to abandon all sense of time and place and be able to connect to my own inner world. In this sense, each image almost serves as a selfportrait. I’ve said in the past that my practice is about reflecting on what it is that helps me breathe, but I realize now that it is also my way of remembering what once
prevented me from doing so, and a part of myself that carries a weight of the past.
I am interested in capturing spaces that feel unfamiliar and unknown, quiet but simultaneously loud. I intentionally underexpose each image to bring attention to darkness and shadows because I am curious about the tension and vulnerability that accompanies them. My intention is to change the context of the traditional landscape by attaching it to the self, and to explore the feeling of longing through depicting the natural world.
Selena Kearney (b. 1979) is a Coast Salish artist who was raised on the Chehalis Reservation in Washington State. Her work merges photography, performance, and archival practices to examine themes of identity, cultural resilience, and representation. A longtime keeper of community portraits, she has produced and maintained a Chehalis portrait archive since 2008. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where her research focuses on historical boarding school photographs and Coast Salish cultural reclamation.
Absent Record 1
Absent Record 2
Absent Record 3
My current practice begins with an archival project that forefronts the obscured histories of Native children in boarding schools. Entrusted to me by Professor Jan Tichy and originally assembled by the late curator Rod Slemmons, this collection reveals images documenting the forced assimilation of Indigenous youth. In response, I hand-apply layers of charcoal over each photograph, a gesture that introduces opacity and disruption. This intervention resists passive viewing, inviting audiences to grapple with the unseen stories and enduring cultural resilience behind these images. By obscuring individual faces and forms, I shift the viewer’s focus from the colonial narrative imposed upon them to the complexities of Indigenous life and survival that persist beyond the frame.
Aligned with this archival effort, my work on the Black River—a significant waterway in my Coast Salish homelands—explores the inky depths of its surface as a
symbolic space of vision within darkness. Through photography, I reflect on the fluid nature of memory and cultural continuity, using the river’s darkness to encompass forms of knowing that resist simple visibility. Another ongoing project, Object/ Ritual, interrogates commodified representations of “Nativethemed” costumes. Photographed in stark black-box settings, these images expose the distortions of Indigenous culture within consumer markets and invite a reevaluation of how these objects circulate within visual culture.
Through photography, performance, and archival research, I strive to create spaces where Indigenous stories resonate with a depth that challenges voyeuristic consumption. In these layered interventions, darkness becomes a medium of revelation, allowing ancestral knowledge and contemporary Indigenous perspectives to remain resilient and evocative.
Invisibility of Distance Mordançage Silver Gelatin Print 2025 ⟵
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To Know Every Corner Nine Individual Archival Inkjet Prints 2025
Berkley Reddick (b. 2000) is an analog photographer, who utilizes imagery to understand relationships between visibility, temporality, and the unseen. Reddick experiments with fragmentation, alternative processes and collage-like manipulations, in search of finding visual representations for concepts that are felt, but difficult to perceive. Themes of focus include distance, intimacy, past recollection, and relationships between body, memory and structural space. Originally from Baltimore City, Reddick graduated from Bucknell University in 2023. She was the recipient of the Class of 1905 Art Prize, and holds a BA in Studio Art.
Photographs are an attempt to make the vanishings legible. An act of sentiment, an attempt to remember. A cue to awaken a visual memory, stored away. Somewhere deep, somewhere far, somewhere almost inaccessible. But what are these vanishings, what do they feel like? What do they look like? What do they represent? I believe that photographs are poetic abstractions of our memories, and our emotions. They are a hypothetical bridge between past and present. Yet this bridge is not functional, all the time. The distance between the two, the bridge that connects them, is mediated by absences and ever shifting memory. My process is an objectification of time. A focus on the fragments that are left, amidst all that are gone. What is present
in this absence? Where can the bridges still be found? How do I code these units of negative space? There are so many fragments: what is known, what is had, what is gone, what is felt, what is there but unseen. How can we piece it all together? A manipulation of connections, from differing photographic veins. A circulation of parallel pathways, allowing us to see everything, and nothing all at once. To feel all that is amongst all that isn’t.
What is legible in absence? What marks are left, from a place once lived? Where can I see you, even if you are not here? How far is far, and what are the measurements for lengths so great you lose sight? How do I exist, in the space I call
home, and how does this symbiotic relationship between structure, body and soul look? The space between myself and my life is many miles. From my memory, from my relationships, from the home that held it all in. How do I document this loneliness, and the question that this too may be a form of intimacy? How do I represent all that I feel but cannot manage to say? My intention in practice is art making with sentiment, with feeling. With the acknowledgment that some of life’s strongest reverberations may never be fully articulated through word. Photography is a part of our poetic memory. A long-standing, on-going, interwoven and nonlinear narrative, molding to time, experience, and structure as it dissipates.
Structure
Kyle Stephen Dunn (b. 1988, Springfield, IL) is a photographer and lens-based artist who is currently pursuing an MFA in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (class of 2025). Influenced by artists like Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Dunn’s work similarly uses simple yet powerful gestures to explore themes of loss, love, and the importance of community within marginalized groups. His recent work reflects on the lost histories of LGBTQIA+ communities in rural towns of Central Illinois. By revisiting sites from his past, Dunn reflects on his own experiences as a queer person growing up in these communities, while also connecting them to broader LGBTQIA+ experiences. Through photographic portraiture and other multimedia works, such as sculpture and painting, Dunn seeks to provoke deep thought, foster dialogue, and create understanding around these subjects. By incorporating markmaking and his personal touch, he expands possibilities of photographic expression, adding layers of intentionality and meaning to his work.
A Queer Space Archival Inkjet Print, Casein Paint Champaign, IL 2024
A Queer Space Archival Inkjet Print Champaign, IL 2023
This project explores the loss and lasting significance of queer safe spaces in rural America through the history of a former gay bar in Champaign, IL. Once a vital refuge for LGBTQ+ community, the bar was destroyed by fire in 2017 and never replaces, leaving a void that still lingers today. By photographing queer individuals at the site where this space once stood, I seek to capture not only their presence but
also the absence of the designated safe space. Through portraits and personal testimonies, this work reflects on the role such spaces have played in queer identity, resilience, and community-building— both then and now. This project is both an act of remembrance and a call to action, preserving history while amplifying the voices of those who still seek belonging in a place that no longer exists.
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Hanora Lincoln (b. 1999) is a multimedia artist from the Washington D.C area whose mediums mainly deal with photography, textiles, print media, and ceramics. They graduated with their BFA from Michigan State University with a minor in fine art photography and a minor in art history and visual culture. Their work currently focuses on memory and how they can use materials that can provoke a physical and emotional response from viewers. They are currently pursuing the MFA in photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
My work deals with memories, human connection, the body, abuse, and gender. Using donated or found objects such as clothing, glass, and other fabrics, I try to represent these topics in a more physical manner. These materials carry with it stories and experiences that are in the woven threads, the objects they used to hold, and the touch that lingers there. Articles of clothing keep memory with them long after an event has pasted, tightly holding onto its histories. I believe that objects hold deep sentimental value and are integral to the exploring the
human experience. How we connect to things, people, and ourselves and how these objects are a means to try and understand them as well. In my most recent works I explore what happens when the clothing that is meant to protect us fails us instead. How these personal items begin to tell another story—one that will always stay with us. Whether its from trauma or a transition of growth— how can they allow the individuals to tell their stories through a series of self portraits while removing the identity of their face.
Serena Beggs is a Los Angeles native currently living in Chicago. She grew up amongst other makers who are foundational members in the Los Angeles art scene. She has an associates degree in Media Arts from Marymount California University as well as a BFA from ArtCenter College of Design. After graduating from ArtCenter she worked in commercial photography as a digital tech and photography assistant for 5 years. During this time she continued to develop her fine art practice and made the decision to pursue a masters and focus on her own projects.
I open my mouth and find ways to connect to others around me through the expanded fields of photography, collaboration, and performance. I create site specific installations that blend several mediums to represent experiences of the body. By representing trauma through objects and immersive experiences, I get the opportunity to communicate this large theme that I have found photographs alone cannot capture. My work is often born out of conversations or interactions with those close to me.
In my piece (My Rape Education) I discuss consent education with my
mother through the lens of a popular movie while being projected onto the bedding I was assaulted on at 20 years old. In the same vein my work (Acts of Looking in collaboration with Linnie Cole) discusses how a person transforms after a traumatic event. How they move forward in this newness are questions she and I address through sculpture, audio, and images. Storytelling is at the heart of my work.
Most of the projects I have created over the years are centered around telling others’ stories as they are a reflection of my own experience. When I have felt a lack of community
or representation it gives me the opportunity to create that myself. In my photographic work around infertility and 12 step recovery my subjects are self reflective. Allowing people to see me as much as the work allows others to see themselves.
People have always been at the center of my creative practice. I aim to create a space between myself and my collaborators that builds trust and fosters community. The importance here is not the final piece created, but the company of others, sharing a collective pursuit of growth through storytelling.
My Rape Education, 2024
The object hanging is the bedding I was raped on at 20. Which has recently come into my possession. The rape took place in my parents’ home.
The audio and video elements are of my mother recounting how she took the opportunity to educate me on rape/consent when I was 12.
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My Rape Education Documentation Image 1&2
Installation Consisting of Video, Audio, Sculpture, and Text. 2024
Lili Xie (b. 1993, China) engages with the realms of photography, video, performance, and ceramics in her artistic practice. The evolution of her work is an ongoing journey of self-exploration, inquiry, and the deconstruction of her own identity. Through these diverse mediums, she navigates the complex landscape of personal introspection and transformation, using her body as a conduit to express and explore the depths of her inner self.
Penis Project Series II
Newspaper, Inkjet
Printed on
Newsprint Paper
16½ x 22 inch
2024–ongoing ⟶
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Penis Project Series II
Film Photography
Inkjet Print
20 x 30 inch
2024–ongoing
One of my recent works, The Penis Project, draws inspiration from reflections on family gatherings and the conversations that unfold around the dinner table. Growing up in a family with deeply rooted traditional gender biases, I was raised in an environment where males were favored over females. From a young age, I was exposed to the concept of objectifying gender, with phallic worship lingering like a ghost in my father’s yearning for a son and in my mother’s wistful comments on how much better it would have been if I were born a boy. These memories are infused with the cultural expectations that impose rigid gender roles. In The Penis Project, I use the aesthetics of commercial advertising to
undermine and critique the patriarchal values embedded in society. Through humor and satire, I strive to reveal the absurdities inherent in social and political life, playfully challenging the notion that power and authority are inherently tied to gender.
At the same time, I seek to broaden my perspective beyond these themes, recognizing that life—and my artistic direction—is multifaceted. In parallel with The Penis Project, I am working on an ongoing series titled Visited Lincoln Park, I Could Not Feel Pangpang, 2023.9.15., where I explore memory, loss, and the ways in which our relationships to places and beings shift over time. This project
represents a different aspect of my practice, one that embraces subtlety and quiet introspection. Through these explorations, I aim to delve into the intangible connections we hold with spaces, memories, and moments from our past.
Ultimately, my art is about questioning established norms, bridging the personal with the political, and using both humor and sincerity as tools to examine the complexities of identity, gender, and society. My work is a continuous, evolving dialogue—one that is both deeply personal and yet resonates with universal themes of introspection, transformation, and empowerment.
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Dinner Table Installation, Canvas and Video 2023–2024
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Visited Lincoln Park, I could not feel Pangpang, 2023.9.15
Light Box, Inkjet Printed on Backlit Film 35x25in 2023–ongoing
Installation Paper, Photo, Ceramics and Wood 2023–ongoing ⟶
Visited Lincoln Park, I could not feel Pangpang, 2023.9.15
Chicago Mary ⟶
Hugo Amarales (b. 1989) is from Ventura County/Los Angeles county, he’s currently based in Chicago, IL. He received his BFA In Photography and Experimental Media from California State University Fullerton. His practice implements both Photography and Sculpture, and he is influenced by Mexican folk art, religious iconography and his experience as a Mexican American.
I am a lens-based artist and sculptor. My work revolves around being a second-generation Mexican American, and the intricacy of navigating both cultures while not fitting into either one; it consists of imagery of cultural and religious iconography, and Latinx diaspora.
Leonardo Gabriel do Amaral (b. 2001) is a photographer and multimedia artist from São Paulo, Brazil. Raised bilingually during the age of information, he quickly formed a parasocial bond with the United States. Obsessed with film, television, and the internet, Leonardo became a cultural nomad, unable to truly connect to a culture that subtly colonized his mind and home. Leonardo’s work is an attempt to deconstruct and understand America, its aesthetics, ideology, and impact on other countries and people. Bringing attention to the subtle ways American hegemony is blindly accepted as the status quo.
Economiza, Realiza (from the series Colonização Cultural)
Polyester Flag
1½ x 1 foot
2025 01
Império Mágico (from the series Colonização Cultural)
Polyester Flag
1½ x 1 foot
2025 02
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Post-Ironic
Postage 02.26.25 (Front)
4¹̸₈ x 9½ inch
Envelope 2025
I was born on the 4th of July, 2001 in São Paulo, Brazil to a Brazilian mother and father. Yet, I was raised bilingually. My mom, quickly realizing how indispensable English was becoming, teaching me English from birth.
My books, my educational shows, my conversations with my mom, were all in English. Portuguese bleeding into my life only when I was with my dad or grandparents. English became my first language. A language I had no real cultural experiential connection with engrained itself so deeply into the pathways of my brain, that I didn’t just speak it better, I thought in it better.
The more time passed, the more my framework became justified by the environment around me. Through globalization, the United States’ influence began to take hold of our culture. The majority of shows on
TV were American shows, made for American audiences. The majority of films in theaters were American films, played in English, with references to other American media and events. The majority of social media apps developed by American companies for American users.
Not knowing English wasn’t just a problem for work, it was a problem for existing. And you didn’t just have to learn English—you had to learn America.
By middle school I was going to movie theaters to watch US Militarybacked Marvel movies in English, I was watching Vine compilations with my school friends during lunch, listening to American songs on my iPod Touch.
I didn’t live in America but I lived through America. I wasn’t American, and yet I felt like I was, at least a
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Postage 02.26.25 (Inside) 4¹̸₈ x 9½ inch
Envelope 2025
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Post-Ironic Postage 02.26.25 (Letter) 8½ x 11 inch
Letter 2025
little bit. I had to be. Even outside of cultural imports like memes, film, music, we constantly had to be aware of America’s decisions as those directly affected our economic and political landscape.
My learning English may have primed me for what was to come, it may have made my love for America greater, my brain more susceptible to its relentless propaganda, but I quickly realized I wasn’t the only one split between these two languages, these two places, these two cultures. It was all of us.
America isn’t a dream, it’s reality, everyone’s reality. Unescapable, omnipresent, universal. We are all American now.
My work is a cry of love, a cry of anger, a cry to the country that colonized and orphaned my brain, my vocal cords, my self.
What Was I Made For?
Red, White, And Blue Nylon Fabric, Polyester Thread, Iron-On Interfacing, and Grommets. 2023
the
Lizzie Moo (b. 1995, Sacramento, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist who enjoys reinterpreting her surroundings while utilizing photography, sewing, printmaking, sound, performance, and more. Lizzie’s current explorations delve into the theatrics of American politics through her body of work, Political Theatres, which navigates the complexities of political discourse, using stagecraft to present political plots in a different, yet fitting, context. Moo employs the concept of the theater as a metaphor to shed light on the inner workings of the political world and the ever-influential media, and the effects they have on their audience.
I’ll Be There When I Need You 3 minute loop, White Velvet, Batting, Antique Chair, Studio Chair, Cardboard, Staples, Packaging Tape, Sound, and Light 2025
I’ll Be There When I Need You (east view) [Next Spread]
I’ll Be There When I Need You (west view)
Pedro Albertini (b. 1998) is a Chilean artist with a BA in Visual Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and is currently pursuing an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). In 2023, he was a resident at SOMA in Mexico City. He is the founder and director of CEDE, an exhibition space in Santiago dedicated to solo shows by emerging artists. His work has been shown at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), and the Museum of Visual Arts (MAVI) in Santiago. His practice explores the intersection of everyday remnants and disappearing matter—an archaeology of the minimal—through objects, sculptures, photographs, and installations.
It usually starts when I’m looking at the floor. I’ve been collecting insect wings, dust, small metal parts, shiny pieces of paper, among other things. I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for, but I’ve chosen to observe the smallest fragments of the world, the pieces that are no longer useful, whether broken, incomplete, or simply lost. I believe these findings themselves become a medium through which death or fertility is made visible, either by the reduced, unchanging evidence of periodic death, or in the subtle acknowledgment of the fecundity that surrounds us.
These are not merely objects or forms; they are moments of encounter, fragments of life distilled into clarity. The pieces and moments that surround us, the detritus of modern life, the quiet arrangements of the mundane, hold mysteries more profound than any fabricated
drama. They carry a universal resonance precisely because they are often overlooked.
Observation is the foundation of my practice, typically expressed through photography, installation, and object-based work. My methodology stems from a need to take things apart in order to better understand how they function. The work serves as a way to unveil hidden systems, where visual taxonomy becomes a tool for reinterpretation.
Lately, I’ve been drawn to circular motions. Ceiling fans, for example, circulate air while simultaneously gathering layers of dust. Through this act of spinning, of simultaneous creation and deterioration, I explore the relationship between the vestiges of daily life and disappearing matter, developing a practice that could be understood
as an archaeology of the minimal. Through objects, sculptures, photographs, and installations, my work revolves around fragmented elements, discarded materials, and material traces that reveal processes of erosion, loss, and transformation.
I practice in the no-how, embracing a deliberate lack of specific expertise as I work. This approach allows the objects and beings I collect to guide the process, to reveal themselves. Through subtle interventions, I aim to expand their meaning, not to explain or control, but to invite others into their presence. Beyond materiality, my practice questions the symbolic weight of remnants and decaying forms, reflecting on what we consider valuable, permanent, or worthy of being remembered.
Yudie Zhang (b. 2001) is an artist working primarily in photography and installation. In her creations, she delves into aspects of common human experiences and cognitive processes such as language, memory, and emotions as experienced through our senses. While her work explores humanity, it resists a human-centered ideology. Even so, there is a self-consciousness present in her practice—one that embraces the limitations of her human experience. She is currently an MFA candidate in Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
My work investigates the tension between the artificial and the natural, questioning how authenticity is shaped through the artifacts we create and consume. Through photography and sculpture, I explore how objects mirror, distort, and construct emotional and perceptual experience—especially when sentimentality is mass-produced and endlessly replicated. Can feeling remain meaningful once stripped of its singularity?
I’m drawn to contradiction: the manufactured and the organic, the intimate and the collective, the sincere and the performative. I examine the reflexive moment when sincerity blurs into spectacle, and authenticity dissolves into artifice. My practice reflects on emotional response while recognizing the spectacle of sentiment and the limits of my own subjectivity. While rooted in human experience, it resists a human-centered perspective— embracing complexity, ambiguity, and contradiction instead.
Zhongxuan Niu (b. 2002, China) is inspired by the emotions and visual culture she observes in everyday life. She uses diverse media such as photography, graphic design, and 3D modeling to weave together memory and imagination, exploring the dialogue between the past and the present. For her, art is not only a tool for emotional expression but also a way to examine the relationship between the self and the world.
I often find inspiration in my own experiences and the stories of those around me. For example, revisiting my parents’ wedding film from 30 years ago made me reflect on how marriage and love evolve over time. In this project, I combine past imagery with present emotions to reveal the often-overlooked complexities of family relationships.
In another project, Sparkling Hallucination, I use the visual language of K-pop to explore the subtle boundaries between fantasy and reality, balancing nostalgia with contemporary trends. To me, art is a way to communicate with the world. I want my work to capture the emotional details of human connections, allowing each viewer to find their own story within it.
Shuyuan Zhou (b. 2001) is a lens-based artist and poet. Zhou’s work interrogates the patriarchal structures prevalent in East Asian societies and her artistic inquiries aim to address social issues such as intergenerational trauma, domestic violence, and oppressive beauty standards. Zhou’s recent projects delve into nostalgia, immigrant identity, and collective memory.
Zhou received her BFA in Media and Arts from Duke Kunshan University and her BA in interdisciplinary Studies from Duke University and is currently an MFA candidate in the Photo Department at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Golden, White #1
麦地金黄，风雪茫茫 #1
Archival Pigment
Photographed in Wuxiang Village, Feidong County, Hefei, Anhui, China
2024
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Golden, White #2
麦地金黄，风雪茫茫 #2
Digital Scan Of Handwritten Poetry
2024
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Golden, White #3
麦地金黄，风雪茫茫 #3
Archival Pigment
Print,
Photographed In Jinniu Town, Lujiang County, Hefei, Anhui, China
2024
This video installation depicts a silent “shared meal” between myself and my mother. Two screens are placed facing each other on a table, showing videos of us eating on opposite sides of the screen. There is no dialogue or eye contact— only quiet gestures. The background fabric features photographs of food I sent to my mother, while the tablecloth displays images of food she sent to me. These food photos have become an integral part of our everyday communication, serving as a way to maintain connection despite the physical distance.
The work stems from my experience of living apart from my mother in different countries. With time zone differences and contrasting routines, our communication often feels fragmented and superficial. My mother frequently asks me, “Have you eaten yet?” or shares pictures of her meals. In response, I often send her photos of my food—not
only to reassure her that “I’m eating well, you don’t need to worry,” but also to signal, “I’ve updated you, please leave me alone.” These small, routine interactions embody both care and resistance, reflecting the complexities of our relationship.
“Have You Eaten Yet?” is a video installation that explores the nuances of parent-child relationships through the everyday act of eating. Food in this work serves as both a symbol of familial care and a medium of unspoken tension. By recreating this exchange in a visual and spatial format, the work invites viewers to reflect on the ways we communicate and express emotions in close relationships, especially in the context of physical and emotional distance. It is both a personal documentation of my experiences and a broader commentary on the layered dynamics of modern familial bonds.
Mark Wang (b. 1999, China) is an artist working with imagemaking, printmaking, and performance to perceive the topic of memory and identity through speculative perspective. His work and research focused on the topic of migration and the complexity of identity. He approaches materiality with a conceptual and historical context. Throughout his practice engaging with archive materials and historical record, the passion for mundane stories helps him develop an artistic method challenging the conventional investigational way of understanding marginalized and traumatic history. From playful historical reenactment to constructed archives, he presents an alternative vision with slippage between preexistent records, memory and fluidity of identity.
This project draws from my grandfather’s memoir, when he lived in Harbin, China, hiding with relatives during political persecution. In a building shared with Russian immigrants, he found discarded banknotes in trash bins and toilets, cleaned them, and used the salvaged money to buy treats like fried cakes. I retell his story through intaglio-printed currencies from that era, collaged with images of fried cakes, oily paper towels, memoir excerpts, and street scenes from Harbin—creating a visual diary of his daily life.
Key materials echo the narrative: Chine-collé, a printmaking technique using flour paste, recalls our family’s photos mounted on pink paper with the same paste, now damaged from years of displacement. The project also explores shifting ideas of wealth through currency—its domestic, cultural, and global relativity. Each print includes the banknote’s silver value in 1947, reflecting how trauma and boredom, exile and wonder, intertwined in his experience.
Install Shot 2025
Untitled #31
Photogravure Prints on Resin
Reinforced Tissue, Photogravure Prints and Pigment Prints on Washi paper, Mounted on Etching Paper with Rice Paste Chicago, IL 2024
Untitled #17 Pigment Prints on Etching Paper, Handwriting on Resin, Reinforced Tissue Paper, Mounted Together with Rice Paste Chicago, IL 2024
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Untitled #21 Pigment Prints on Etching Paper, Photogravure prints and Toned Cyanotype on resin reinforced Tissue Paper, Chine-collé together with Rice Paste Chicago, IL 2024
#3 from the “Framework_ Chicago” series Pigment Print
5 x 7 inch
2024
#4 from the “Framework_ Chicago” series Pigment Print
5 x 7 inch
2024
Haru Andersen (b. 1998) is a photography based artist, exploring the historical connection to events that have had a detrimental effect in an urban area, stemming from her interest in urban sociology and history. Majoring in media, culture, and communication as an undergraduate at the International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, Haru’s interest in media as a tool of artistic expression eventually landed her in the direction of photography. She is currently a MFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago furthering her studies in photography.
My current art practice works around the idea of reinterpreting “post-war” and point out how the trauma that is left within the land and the people last for a much longer span than the original timeframe that is usually considered to be “post-war” in a region or country. I specifically work around Post-World War II Japan and how the first ever nuclear bombs to be dropped on humanity has altered the way we know the world. Based on the argument that the Anthropocene started in 1945, I use photography as a tool
to capture traces of the drastic changes that have left an impact on places, but also recognizing the medium’s weaknesses and using sculptural elements to strengthen the message around my work.
Being greatly influenced by Post-World War II Japanese photographers such as Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Daido Moriyama, and Takuma Nakahira, I see myself as a continuation of this generation of photographers, as we still see the detrimental effects of the war still being projected in the world we
live in today. As someone who was raised half of their life in Japan and the other half in the US, I would like to offer a different perspective on the complex relationship between these two countries and recognize how each country has treated each other’s war crimes to strengthen their current relations. As the situation around international relations are becoming increasingly alarming, I wish for people to have a reaction to my work that would create an environment for people to have difficult conversations.
YI-CHANG YANG is a multimedia artist whose practice spans photography, sound design, and new media installation art. Since 2023, he has gradually shifted his creative focus toward sound design, emphasizing experimental sound design and improvised noise art. He has produced multiple sound installations, participated in numerous sound art performances, and collaborated with other visual artists in joint performances.
At this point I consider myself as a multimedia artist whose practice spans photography, sound design, and new media installation art. Since 2023, I have gradually shifted my creative focus toward sound design, emphasizing experimental sound design and improvised noise art. I have produced multiple sound installations, participated in
numerous sound art performances, and collaborated with other visual artists in joint performances.
In addition to my sound-based work, I remain deeply engaged in photography. My photographic works often revolve around personal and familial memories, including projects such as 2023’s
Painting the Trail of Whisper in Every Moment Captured and 2024’s The Invisible Village I & II. Using images as a foundation, I delve into shared family memories and traumas, striving to recreate memories and capture fleeting or forgotten moments through photography.
Lauren Bertelson (b. 2000) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines vision, familial dynamics, and the limitations of photographic representation through a combined photographic and sculptural practice. She is a recipient of the 2022 SOURCE Grant to develop Like Mother, Like Daughter, which centers itself around the generational obligations and rewards stemming from traditions and norms of domesticity. Bertelson holds a BFA in Art Photography from Syracuse University. Her work has been exhibited at Light Work, Studio 1608, Target Gallery, and other locations across the US.
My image based practice explores and utilizes the limitations of photographic representation. Within my work, I respond to the generations of women in my family who have a deeply fraught relationship with photography. They scratched themselves out of color slides, violently purged their images from family portraits, and continuously turned their backs to the camera, all as a means to avoid the preservation of their image. My work emerges from their impulse and desire to remove themselves. Within this work, I utilize selfportraiture, create sculptures out of physical photographs, and
rephotograph images from my family archive. In consciously turning the camera on myself, I assume my role as the next woman in this matrilineage to defy and define photography. In rephotographing images from my family archive, I am left with fragments of the women’s bodies and the backs of their heads— always incomplete images. It is this incompleteness that drives me to renegotiate the terms of the photograph through sculptural intervention. Sculpture becomes a way to “re-dimensionalize” the image, and to fight against the reductive flatness of photography.
Her Archival Inkjet Print 2024
In/grain/ed Archival Inkjet Print 2024 ⟵ ⟶
James Baroz (b. 2000, Ripton, VT) is a photographer whose works are often visual metaphors for the unseen human connections that evidently exist. Working alongside our world’s natural laws of physics, Baroz is curious about the ways in which phenomena and curiosity intersect to explore methodologies which heighten our sensitivity. At SAIC, Baroz was recently awarded the James Weinstein Memorial Fellowship. He holds a BA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and is currently pursuing a MFA in Photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
My practice explores the intersection of memory and invisible forces that transform absence into a form of presence through the visual representation of phenomena and a father-son relationship. By examining photography’s capability to reveal within the frame, I experiment with how intangible forces such as magnetism or the loss of familial connections manifest in physical forms, evoking a deeper understanding of memory and legacy. I am fascinated by the tension between what is visible and invisible, and how photography can uncover these hidden layers. This duality of magnetic fields and familial lineage awaken personal feelings of longing and discovery, inviting opportunity for healing as well as reconciliation.
In my process, I engage with both personal and scientific methodologies to investigate the emotional resonance of invisible phenomena. Alongside representational photography I work with camera-less techniques,
including photograms, cliché-verre, and cyanotypes to create layered significance of ephemeral materials and tangible remnants from my grandfather’s past. I am drawn to photographic processes which allow for the recording of the intangible—loss, memory, and phenomena—enabling me to trace invisible forces and create manifestations of what is unseen. I am interested in how personal histories are passed down through paternal lines and how the spaces we occupy metaphorically shape our understanding of lineage and recollection.
Through these methods, I examine how space, history, and identity are intertwined in the construction of personal and collective memory, allowing for multi-perspective understandings of interpretation. By unpacking themes of western romanticization, patriarchal lineage, and masculine archetypes, my work engages the complexities of familial history.
Magnetic
Magnetic
Zixi Wang is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Chicago. Her work explores memory, temporality, and emotional experience through photography and video installation. Zixi approaches photography to repair emotional memories and continuously explores self-expression through diverse artistic mediums, ranging from traditional photographic techniques to experimental contemporary practices. Zixi holds a Master’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she continues to develop projects that bridge visual art with personal and collective narratives. She aims to expand her creative exploration while advocating for underrepresented artistic voices through collaborative and independent initiatives.
Fading Winds explores the gradual fading of memories of a deceased loved one, symbolizing the helplessness and sorrow of wind and dust being carried away to the distant horizon. In this piece, I have cut my grandmother’s photograph into nine pieces, representing eternity and immortality in my cultural background. I attempt to confront memory, to deepen my impression of her, and to resist the passage of time. However, the more I try to hold on to the past, the more I feel the invasion of forgetfulness. Each piece of the photograph seems like a futile struggle against memory, eventually dissolving into nature, unable to resist the flow of fate.
Tanya Shah
8–11
Berkley Reddick
16–19
Pedro Albertini
48–51 Yudie Zhang
52–55
Hanora Lincoln
24–27
Zhongxuan Niu
58–61
Serena Beggs
28–31 Hugo Amarales
36–39 Leonardo Gabriel do Amaral
40–43
Haru Andersen
70–73 Lauren Beterlson
78–81
Zixi Wang
86–89
Selena Kearney
12–15 Kyle Dunn
20–23 Lili Xie
32–35 Lizzie Moo
44–47
Shuyuan Zhou
62–65
Mark Wang 66–69
YI-CHANG YANG
74–77 James Baroz 82–85
Curated
by
Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez
Designed by Riesling Dong
Coordinated by Jan Tichy
Printed by
Graphic Arts Studio
Typeface
Overpass
JetBrains Mono
First edition of 150 copies
Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez is a curator and writer currently based in East Lansing, Michigan and was previously based in Chicago, Illinois and Iowa City, Iowa, but her heart is always in Puerto Rico. Her work is mainly engaged with photography, film, and video, with a special focus on Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the effects of the US empire around the world. dalinaperdomoalvarez@gmail.com
Riesling Dong is a Chicago-based graphic designer who runs an independent publishing practice centered on experimental book forms. Through collaborations with artists, she reimagines the book as a storytelling medium where meaning unfolds through structure, sequence, and material. Her work challenges linear narratives, embracing risography and letterpress as integral, tactile processes. rieslingd.com
All art © 2025 the artists, all text © 2025 the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permissions in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tanya Shah
Selena Kearney
Berkley Reddick
Kyle Dunn
Hanora Lincoln
Serena Beggs
Lili Xie
Hugo Amarales
Leonardo Gabriel do Amaral
Lizzie Moo
Pedro Albertini
Yudie Zhang
Zhongxuan Niu
Shuyuan Zhou
Mark Wang
Haru Andersen
YI-CHANG YANG
Lauren Bertelson
James Baroz
Zixi Wang
