‘Here’s the Thing’ Warehouse exhibition displays varied mediums in phases
From large-scale screen prints to interactive installations, "Here’s the Thing" highlights the work of eight graduate students of Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. The exhibition explores themes of identity and memory. Taite Paradise | Staff Photographer
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.
A children’s book featuring colorful illustrations about Brazilian heritage, a beloved toy that spies on the users and screen-printed collages that examine themes of memory line the walls of the Nancy Cantor Warehouse. Each represents months or years of work from graduate students from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.
“A lot of research, a lot of work, a lot of time, was dedicated to making artwork,” Marianna Smith, an SU illustration graduate student, said. “I did an extensive reading on my research area. From that research, I started writing pieces, and then from those essays, I made the visual work.”
Smith is among eight third-year SU graduate students whose artwork is currently on display at the Warehouse Gallery’s “Here’s the Thing” exhibition. The exhibition’s first installment, open from last Friday until April 4, features students from computer art and animation, studio arts, illustration and film programs in VPA. All of the artists will be graduating at the end of the semester. Part two of the exhibition, featuring nine more artists, will begin on April 16 and run through April 24.
The exhibition serves as a culmination of each student’s research and creative development, with work that reflects their individual focus and process. The pieces explore themes ranging from identity and memory to technology and surveillance.
The show highlights different artistic mediums and individual artists, from large-scale screen prints to interactive installations.
One installation, “Four Best Friends” by Atienah Cape, reimagines a childhood toy as a commentary on digital privacy, transforming a Furby into a surveillance device that records and stores information in real time.
Atienah Cape’s “Four Best Friends” reimagines a childhood toy as a commentary on digital privacy, transforming a Furby into a surveillance device that records and stores information. The installation is on display through April 4 at the “Here’s the Thing” exhibit. Taite Paradise | Staff Photographer
“My work mostly deals with themes of surveillance, security and policies surrounding our data online,” Cape, a computer arts graduate student, said. “I started this project two semesters ago, and, as someone who grew up in the early 2000s, I remember hearing about the controversy behind the Furby and if it was spying on people and repeating sensitive data.”
Studio arts graduate student Sophia Hashemi’s large-scale screen prints explore internal thought and emotional landscapes. The main piece within her collection, “An Incandescent Interval,” shows how different versions of the self can exist at once.
“It’s been a very surreal experience to see all the work that’s been accumulated over the past three years presented together in one space,” Hashemi said.
Hashemi said many of the students featured in the exhibit are displaying work they began working on during their first year as graduate students. Hashemi is presenting a work she created in her first year, one she created in her second year and three from her third year.
“‘An Incandescent Interval’ considers a span of time that is held rather than passed through, a moment extended beyond its natural limit where experience remains active instead of resolving into memory,” Hashemi said.
The exhibition is divided into two groups, with students showing their work in phases. Each group presents a different set of artists and their final thesis projects, offering a broad look at the work produced across disciplines in the program.
While some works focus on technology and social commentary, others explore identity, heritage and personal experience. Though the works vary in medium and subject, they are connected by a shared effort to explore complex ideas. Many of the pieces in part one reflect broader themes of human existence and cultural identity.
Smith’s artwork investigates her Brazilian American cultural heritage, using illustration to examine belonging and reconnection. Her artwork features a children’s book and its different illustrations. Smith also created sculptural wooden objects and digitally-created images she printed out.
“(It’s) a way of reclaiming that part of my identity, but also hopefully sharing avenues with other children who might be in a similar situation,” Smith said.
