In Looking Back To Where I Am Now, Anya Ballantyne invites the audience to reflect on their personal history and the connection between their past and present selves. The artist creates a visual journey that explores nostalgia and introspection by combining personal archive materials, including photos, videos, and audio from her childhood to the present day. These bits of media are layered on a classic elementary school-style green construction paper, which represents both innocence and growth for Ballantyne. By combining moving collages, multiple exposure photographs, and abstract dreams, this work visually represents many ways of relating to past selves.

Cristina Chen

366 explores Cristina Chen’s relationship to bad luck, superstitions, and cultural traditions. Drawing inspiration from her own bad luck, a joke amongst her friends, Chen portrays herself initially as flippant and unphased by Chinese cultural attitudes around luck and the Lunar New Year. As bad luck awkwardly follows her through sketch-comedy inspired scenes, Chen insists that she is American and doesn’t believe in these superstitions. Later, she moves through rituals to connect to her ancestors. By moving fluidly between casual detachment and slapstick humor, the work forms an emotional spectrum that aims to encompass the complex relationship between Chinese American identity and ancient customs and beliefs.

Emily Rodriguez Cabrera

The Lost Journey is an immersive video game that invites players into the search for a missing person. Chong challenges players to solve various puzzles and overcome obstacles to uncover clues and unlock the missing person's memories. Each player moves through the noir-inspired atmosphere of the game towards the same strange discovery — an unexpected conclusion to the case of the unnamed missing person. The Lost Journey offers players a chance to reflect on their own experiences and perceptions of identity and memory, to gain a deeper connection to the complexities of these topics. The game's combination of storytelling, puzzle-solving, and self-reflection offers a unique and memorable experience that will resonate with players long after they complete it.

Qirong Peng

Fragments uses long, carefully framed shots, along with light, and neutral colors to create a sense of calm anticipation, like the walls of a bare apartment waiting to be moved into. After an initial encounter with upbeat music in the artist’s headphones, we enter a space of meditative quiet. A series of close up shots guides us towards the work’s major shift - a slow introduction to color, sound, and feeling as the artist handles and scans letter after letter from family members back in the Dominican Republic. A joyful, tropical beat returns as more letters appear, bringing the vibrancy of love, family, and the Caribbean into what was a quiet, white room far away from home.

Ian Voss-Potts

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Erika Maravilla
Lost, 2023
Digital photography collection
Dimensions variable

Photographs in the collection Lost explore direct symbolism and self reflection through the use of colored light and long exposures. Ghostly imprints of Maravilla and other subjects flit in and out of the frames, recalling 19th century spirit photography. Each bright color seems to represent a different feeling, phase, or event in the artist’s life, but this symbolism is incomplete — there is no obvious correlation between the colors and emotions displayed. The exception to this opacity is the word “Padayon”, written both in English and in a Filipino script, which roughly translates to “carry on.” Despite someone or something being “lost” in these photographs, their strong sense of motion carries them forward.

Nazin Rahman

Little Home in Brooklyn is a vibrant, colorful collection of imagery from the perspective of an iPhone photographer. Through this familiar interface, Nabi takes us on a tour of carefully selected locations in her neighborhood. As we look through the camera’s lens we see street art, an imported foods market, street scenes and trees in bloom, offering a glimpse into the artist’s relationship with her own home. The selection and timing of the camera’s click, moments of hesitation, and the order of the shots all point towards a deeply personal and specific relationship to each and every scene. It is almost as if we are walking through Kensington with the artist as she photographs, but her particular feelings about each place, each moment, and each shot remain just out of reach.

Helen Ng Chang

Grey Matter by Harmony Huang is a silent black-and-white animation piece brimming with metaphors and symbolism. The piece follows two characters — one in white drawn against a black background, and the other in black drawn against a white background. Both appear alone and then together on a split screen. The piece begins with the white character falling, landing, and attempting to find a way out of a bubble. Meanwhile, the black character enters the frame on its own accord, changes shape, and moves freely through the space. Through minimal facial expressions and body language, we begin to see the white character as fearful and overthinking, while its counterpart seems playful, determined, and constantly evolving. The lack of additional detail or context encourages the audience to bring their own experiences and beliefs to an interpretation of the work, producing a range of narratives that might explain how we, and the pair of characters, got here.

Erika Maravilla

Nature's Judgment is a post-apocalyptic digital landscape created by Helen Ng in Blender 3D. The project aims to capture the complex set of emotions we experience when confronted with a future without us, as the possibility of a real ecological apocalypse of some sort grows larger. Inspired in part by the HBO series The Last of Us and other media portrayals of post-apocalyptic space, the project features natural elements reclaiming urbanized areas alongside destroyed infrastructure. Indications of phases of disorganization, political upheaval, and a small surviving population reward the viewer who looks closely. Like many narratives of ecological collapse, the human race bears responsibility and the “judgment” of nature in this world. But the viewer is not necessarily looking at this world from the perspective of a human being. Camera movement and timing suggest some other kind of being, complicating the viewer’s relationship with apocalypse narrative and human responsibility.

Crystal Chong

In the silent video Faces, Ian Voss-Potts explores the casual intimacy of romantic relationships. Voss-Potts captures his grandparents, as well as himself and his partner, in a romantic, beautiful setting. The work highlights the intricate, and small interactions that create comfort and connection in a moment of relative quiet. As the video fades in and out between the two couples, the viewers observe both parallels and differences. As each couple walks out of frame, we are left with a sense of peace and warmth, and an appreciation for the small things we share with others.

Fahema Nabi

Paralysis by Jacob Lam animates the unnatural presence and gravity of social media in modern life. We begin by following the eerie robotic movement of a Lego figure into a bathroom and watching him pull a lever to begin his daily routine - drowning in the algorithm. Stuck in the loop of content consumption, the figure’s awkward, unnatural mannerisms and painted facial expressions become uncanny, disturbing, and funny. Paralysis is at times oblique, exaggerated, metaphorical and humorous. It challenges viewers to think twice about what they normalize in their everyday lives and the consequences of engrossing oneself in social media, or any emerging technology. Lam’s inspirations include the simultaneously disturbing and humorous film Get Out by Jordan Peele, and the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma.

Shimran Neha

In Routine Sip, Jafrin Uddin shares a part of her daily routine that she looks forward to. The video is formed by photographs of Uddin’s favorite cold drink in her own hand, taken from a variety of locations over many days. As we speed through iterations on her daily treat, the cup begins to drain and then refill. A sound bite referring to cups as “half empty or half full” asks the audience to reflect on routine, happiness, and repetition. As the clock ticks and life goes by at high speed, the moment with a refreshing drink becomes an opportunity to slow down and enjoy something small, a respite from the hustle. The work stems from Uddin’s own realization that her daily beverage was an important ritual in her life.

Jacob Lam

What Can You Do In 24 Hours by Jie Lin Wu is a documentary-style art piece that takes the formation of personal goals as an inspirational catalyst. As we follow the subject through routine activities and time spent with friends, the piece evolves into a casual and loving portrait of her and her relationship to the filmmaker. The piece is characterized by intimate shots and audio, allowing the viewer to become closely immersed in small, ordinary things like the social interactions, mannerisms, and speech patterns of the subject. More than a conversation on life and goals, Wu captures a sense of care, friendship, and comfort that becomes a unique part of the viewing experience and fosters a feeling of relatability and compassion.

Anya Ballantyne

Nazin Rahman’s work Kintsugi captures the viewer's attention with its bright colors and smooth, stylized stop motion animation. The video follows a young girl as she moves past a romantic relationship and sets new goals for herself. The narrative is encapsulated by a technique called Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Kintsugi rebuilds broken ceramics with gold instead of glue, to ensure that the cracks are shiny and visible in the repaired piece. Rahman uses this practice to visualize a stronger, more valuable, more beautiful version of herself after going through what feels like an experience of becoming shattered. Rahman emphasizes that while we will all go through hard times, something as simple as a physical practice can create a different attitude and a different perspective on the experience.

Jie Lin Wu

Overcanvas combines traditional 2D graphics with an immersive 3D environment where users are invited to navigate a vandalized and plundered art gallery. Nevertheless, within this empty void are new opportunities, as portals to other worlds appear in place of the stolen artworks. As the user steps into one of these empty frames, they are immediately transported to a new 3D world where they can interact with a famous artwork in three dimensions. The user becomes immersed in a world of color, texture, and sound while uncovering hidden details, new spatialized experiences, and deeper meanings of the artworks chosen by Peng. Overcanvas turns the absence of art into a transformative experience, dismantling the convention of medium and creating an accessible atmosphere that invites the user to explore and engage with museum art like never before.

Sebastian Gomez

TrumPet by Sebastian Gomez is an animated video following the adventures of our main character, Trumpet. Taking inspiration from animated shows like Little Einsteins and Angela Anaconda, Gomez animates cut out images to show Trumpet on a journey of self discovery. After losing its confidence in a disappointing concert performance, Trumpet goes through the trials and tribulations of trying to find its voice again, and where it may belong after not living up to the expectations of others. Sound completes these scenes — Trumpet isn’t just journeying to different places, but different soundscapes as well. Quirky and humorous sound effects immerse the audience in Trumpet’s experience of each world, from the electric guitars of the rock concert to the bustling sounds of a busy airport. Trumpet travels to great lengths before finding a new sound space, in which it can finally express its authentic voice.

Jaffrin Uddin

Grown Up is a stop motion animation highlighting a young woman’s struggles to live up to expectations. At first, we cycle through mundane scenes of daily life; the subject works alone at the computer, lies in bed, washes her face. As time passes, things begin to move faster and faster, and visualizations of anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions surround the character. The conversation of marriage looms in the background and in the next room, where her parents discuss her future. Arranged marriages and strict parenting are typical in the artist’s Bangladeshi culture, but the specifics of her own family are secondary to the representation of overwhelming emotion hidden in the quiet of everyday life. The minimal use of details and the decision to leave the face of the subject blank guides the audience to a relatable experience of anxiety, enhanced by atmospheric lighting, color, and illustrated visualization of feelings that fill a room and leave space for nothing else.

Harmony Huang