Fall 2024 Student-Curated Exhibitions

August 29–October 5, 2024

Curated by Jaime Solares Carmona (PhD ’28), Izzy Kornblatt (PhD ’27), and Yaxuan Liu

Splitting the North Gallery into halves, Love Here represented two moments of the same movement in two spaces that told the story of how queer public space has shifted in São Paulo. One side was dedicated to Largo do Arouche, a historic square representing LGBTQ+ memory and resistance in the city center, and the other to Praça Roosevelt, a vibrant plaza less than a mile away and a node on the axis that connects downtown to the wealthier west side. Both places are of great symbolic, social, and cultural importance in the city. Yet in recent years Praça Roosevelt has become a vital center of activity for young queer people, while Largo do Arouche has struggled. By placing the two in dialogue, this exhibition explored their affinities and tensions—and celebrated the divergent bodies that yearn for spaces of fraternization, desire, encounter, celebration, and existence.

October 10–November 7, 2024

Curated by Sarah Saad Alajmi (MArch ’20) and Ahmad Alajmi (MArch ’25)

The exhibition Reading Sadu is an introduction to the sadu craft, a weaving technique practiced by the nomadic tribes of Arabia. The exhibition presents its historical context, its symbols and motifs, and a number of collected sadu pieces.

The Arabian desert was known for its nomadic tribes, the Badu, who moved between different locations searching for water and pasturelands. The Badu built distinctive nomadic tents that were shaped by the desert environment. Their movements across the desert required structures that could be frequently assembled, disassembled, and transported using camels. The responsibility for these homes belonged to Badu women, who were skilled weavers. They constructed the tents and decorated their interior textile walls with colorful symbols and motifs inspired by the desert ecology. These elaborate textiles were known as sadu.

The exhibition displays the contemporary work of Kuwait-based sadu weavers and artists Aminah H. Alkanderi, Maha Al-Shimmery, Manal Almaimouni, Masirah Alenezi, Mutairah Aldhafeeri, Seetah Almarri, and Shareefa Abushalfa. They explored the craft in three categories: traditional compositions, expressive designs, and imaginative explorations. While the first two categories present work using the original sadu weaving techniques, the third category involves new techniques and media. The symbols of the sadu allow for many readings of the Arabian desert, and this exhibition celebrates these and the work of sadu weavers.

November 14–December 14, 2024

Curated by Jessica Chen (MArch ’25), Stormy Hall (MArch ’25), Blue Jo (MArch ’25), Omar Martinez Zoluaga (MArch ’25), and Kristen Perng (MArch ’25)

Designed by Orlando Porras (MFA ’24)

Huntsville, Texas, or “Prison City,” is home to one of the country’s most infamous penitentiaries: “the Walls.” Opened in 1849, the Huntsville Unit functioned as the state’s official site for death row and remains the most active execution chamber in the United States. It is also known for hosting the country’s first Prison Rodeo.

The Huntsville Prison Rodeo exploded in popularity after its start in 1931, transforming from an informal event into a spectacle that garnered crowds in excess of 100,000 attendees. Within the context of the Jim Crow South, the rodeo was seen as progressive for integrating Black and white incarcerated people. Despite this, it was a segregated event that provided a disturbingly clear diagram of society— incarcerated men and women, white and “colored” spectators were all separated by surveillance and physical barriers.

The Wildest Show Behind Bars proposes a confrontation with the realities of the Prison Rodeo, which continues today in Louisiana. Hidden behind a facade of amusement and spectacle, it equates romanticized cowboy iconography with the lingering violence of slavery that lives on in the U.S. prison system. This exhibit asks visitors to look plainly at the nuances of this violent spectacle.