SAIC Students to Exhibit Work in Venice

This spring, 20 SAIC students bolstered their knowledge of curatorial approaches—how their work and critical positions intersect with questions of citizenship and its role within art and design. The students were part of the Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) spring course Design Artist Citizen Site: Exploring Belonging, taught by Assistant Professor Ann Lui and Lecturer Iker Gil who are both on the curatorial team for Dimensions of Citizenship, the US Pavilion's exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Focusing on themes of citizenship and built environments, the exhibit Design Artist Citizen Site: Exploring Belonging, the culminating presentation of the course will take place at Cultural Flow Zone, Università Ca’Foscari in Venice, Italy, beginning May 21. Featuring a mix of undergraduate and graduate submissions, and presented through a large textile banner and a physical artifact, the pieces presented will explore themes of immigration; ecology and the agency of plants; nationalism and national identity; queer spaces and violence toward queer people; and forms of belonging produced by architecture and urbanism.

Aided by lectures and critiques with Chicago-based curators and practitioners, students developed new manifestations of their own projects from their existing bodies of work and interests. Students will get to experience the behind-the-scenes work of organizing and installing an exhibition while also exploring the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens May 25.

The exhibition was coordinated by Heidi Metcalf (MArch 2019) and includes works by Adnan Faysal Altunbozar (MFA 2019), Tizzie Maria Baldenebro (MArch 2019), Cat Rose Bluemke (MFA 2018), Mary Nadia Do (BFA 2018), Andrea Hunt (MArch 2019), Ashley Margaret Hooker Jons (MArch 2019), Junxi Lu (BFA 2018), Lanye Luo (BFA 2018), Kathia Marie Muniz-Rios (MFA 2018), Axel Alexander Olson (BFA 2018), Alberto Ortega Trejo (MFA 2019), Meera Rampalli (MA 2019), Xavier Robles Armas (MFA 2019), Daniel Salamanca (MFA 2019), John Alexander Stevens (MA 2018), Kekeli Kodzo Sumah (MArch 2019), Vince Tong (MArch 2019), Karen Wang (BFA 2019), Raven Xu (BFA 2018), and Tinglei Zhang (MArch 2019).