VISUAL
OPINION
SOME
WHERE I N E W BET E N VOLUME JULIA
ISSUE
(32) CHEN
(03)
BFA ILLUSTRATION 2029
CONTRI BUTORS
NATHALIE SLOWAK JULIA CHEN LIAM SHANLEY MAHIRA NIKARI DOMINGUEZ ZIYAN BAI CAINI JIN DARREN ARIAS-MONTESINO DAKIN PLATT NANCY (XI) NAN ADALIA DEACH SEAN MATHEW ROSENTHAL
NATHALIE
NANDINIE ANDLAY (EDITOR-IN-CHIEF) ELISABED DUSHUASHVILI (MANAGING EDITOR) BROOKS ORICH (DESIGN EDITOR) JIANSHEN WU (EDITOR-IN-CHIEF INTERN) MALIA EUGENIO (MANAGING EDITOR INTERN) GOTTFRIED REYES RETANA (DESIGN EDITOR INTERN) MARIA ROVIRA-MCCUNE (STAFF ADVISOR) BFA PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO 2026
SHANLEY
VISUAL
OPINION
Our surroundings have the potential to change us. Like sponges, we absorb traits from the places we visit, and the memories we make cling on to us as we move on to the next. Sometimes, the places we go to leave such a big impact on us that a fading memory is not enough, and we are compelled to commemorate that space through our work. Sometimes, the place is more than just the setting, but the story itself. In this issue of Visual Opinion, you will find stories of twelve places, or ‘ s o m e w h e r e s ’ that have left a mark on SVA students, in the form of photographs, writing, illustrations, and more. Additionally, we have formatted this issue with the hopes that it could find a place in your homes. If you unfold this magazine and flip it over, you will find a poster!
(01) (02) (03) (04) (05) (06) (07) (08) (09) (10) (11) (12)
CREDITS
LIAM
MFA FINE ARTS 2027
SLOWAK
Untitled, Ink on Paper
PURGSTALL AN DER ERLAUF, AUSTRIA BFA
MAHIRA
DESIGN
(01)
VOLUME
(32)
2027
NIKARI
DOMINGUEZ
ISSUE
(03)
MFA VISUAL NARRATIVE 2026
Capturing Life in the Dominican Republic Countryside: Manabao, 35 mm Film Photography
Sultan, Starch-Sized Salt Print
Yichang Diary (top), Shanghai Diary (bottom), Pastel color pencil Separation Walls, Digital Photography
YICHANG & SHANGHAI, CHINA ZIYAN
BAI
(02) BFA
ILLUSTRATION
2027
ISTANBUL, TÜRKIYE CAINI
(03) BFA
JIN
ILLUSTRATION
2026
BENGALURU, KARNATAKA, INDIA BFA
DARREN ARIASMONTESINO
(04) DESIGN
2027
Short Trip, Pack Light, Riso Printed Photography
Cosmos, Muslin, thread, paper
Tuxtla (top), Altay City (bottom), Digital Photography
NEW YORK, NEW YORK DAKIN
PLATT
(06) MFA COMPUTER ARTS 2027
TUXTLA, CHIAPAS, MEXICO & ALTAY CITY, XINJIANG, CHINA NANCY (XI) NAN
(07)
MFA ILLUSTRATION AS VISUAL ESSAY 2026
Taste of Home, Digital
SANTIAGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC ADALIA
DEACH
BFA
ILLUSTRATION
(08) 2027
Scenes from Home, Colored pencil on paper
Castle (top), Asleep (bottom), 35 mm Black & White Film
TROPIC, UTAH & GLENDO, WYOMING
MANABAO, DOMINICAN
LA VEGA, REPUBLIC
SEAN MATHEW ROSENTHAL
(05)
MFA PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO AND RELATED MEDIA 2027
Do you know the Velvet Underground? I know a few songs of theirs, or really people associated with them. They’re a loose grouping band. I only know a few songs by anyone involved but I know there’s a woman with a deep voice and I know the band is associated with Andy Warhol and strange, underground people. One of the songs that I know is by the woman with the dark voice, it’s like five minutes long and it ends with her saying, singing, “Please don’t confront me with my failures/ I have not forgotten them”. I said all of this without stopping. I could see in her face that she didn’t know what to do with it. She wasn’t the only one. So I’ve been listening to stuff like this and a lot of Beatles and I click on “more like this” and there’s always Simon and Garfunkel, specifically their song America. Do you know this song? She didn’t know this song but did ask me what it’s about, which was a question she didn’t need to ask. Well it’s a song about restlessness, but that’s not the point. At the nadir of hopelessness and helplessness, the immensity of what longing is and feels like gets compared to counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike. I told her that I can hear the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike from my house. I told her that I can count the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike through an open window while I lie in bed at night. The words felt good. I said it again. I can hear the New Jersey Turnpike from my house. She didn’t know why I said it three times. Felt good, I said. It was true and it was something I meant, I said. I can hear the New Jersey Turnpike from my house. I was just trying to waste her time. I started saying how I grew up in a very nice place. A big red house on a street corner with pine trees all around the property and some leafy trees too. My town’s school district was a blue ribbon district in the year my older brother was born. The value of the homes have risen tremendously in the last 26 years but so have the property taxes. She asked me if I was really trying to hit on her by talking about property taxes. I smiled and guessed so. But I told her that wasn’t the point. There’s a band from my hometown that I’m embarrassed to love as much as I do and they were the most important band of my adolescence. They have one lyric that goes “So what’s the point of pretending/ When we’ve seen behind the curtain/ And there’s nothing much to see”. I always felt like I was constantly peeking behind curtains and constantly seeing nothing at all. Around the corner from my house are cul de sacs of houses that are bigger than their backyards and they help muddy the noise that soars over and drones down from the New Jersey Turnpike. I see doctors in scrubs plug in their Teslas in their garages and close their doors and their backyard has a playset that their kids outgrew two years ago. She said she didn’t grow up in a place like that. She said she grew up in a town called Poplarville, Mississippi where they have an annual blueberry jubilee and where in 2014 the townsfolk voted 361-149 in favor of allowing beer and wine sales. I said that there are probably that many people that live on the street I grew up on, with that red house on that corner. In Poplarville at the blueberry jubilee she was once a runner up of the Teen Miss Blueberry competition, for which she won a blueberry pie. I’ve never won a pie but I see what the people around me won. They’ve won railings on fake balconies with sliding doors that don’t open. They’ve won above ground pools and privacy fences. They’ve won being able to count the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike even though that wasn’t the prize. The prize was a bushel of blueberries. The prize was a blueberry pie. The prize was a blue ribbon school district. That used to be the prize, and it was a good one. The school district is still one of the best in the country, but it isn’t a blue ribbon district. The home values are still good, but you don’t get as much lawn to mow as you used to. Not that I ever mowed my lawn, I told her. She agreed with me, her parents never cared about how their lawn looked as long as it wasn’t overgrown, just like mine. She couldn’t tell me why people live in Poplarville or why they leave. It’s just what people did - they lived there and then they left there. That sounded definite and I liked that. Poplarville, Mississippi, Writing
(09)
TIANJIN,
CHINA
(10)
SKAGWAY & SITKA, ALASKA
(11)
POPLARVILLE, MISSISSIPPI & EAST BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY
(12)