Please tell us a little bit about yourself (where are you from, what do you do, what are your interests, what do you love most about Philadelphia?)
I’m from Japan. I grew up in couple different places in Japan and also China. Then I moved to US for college and studied in OH and then worked in NYC for a couple years. I always don’t know how to answer "where are you from" questions since I’ve been everywhere!
I’m a 2nd year MFA Fine Arts students at Penn. I mainly work on video and performance, and I’m very interested in unconventional story telling. I really like the size of the city, Philadelphia, and the importance it places on localness. I also like the art community and art scenes here.
What is the title and focus of your exhibition, and how long will it be on view?
The title is From Paper to Infinity. It will be on view for the entirety of the Fall 2015 semester.
How did this exhibition come about?
Education Commons was wondering ihow they could utilize their long hallway spaces for creative purposes/projects. They decided to install six frames on the wall and exhibit original undergraduate work there. One MFA student is selected to curate the exhibitions in this space each semester.
What is unique about hosting an exhibition in Education Commons?
The audiences! Any students can access Education Commons, but it seems many athletes use it most frequently. It’s a great opportunity to introduce artwork to students with different interests and backgrounds in order to encourage more people to be involved with art at Penn.
Were there any challenges associated with the project? What did you learn from it?
This is our first project, so we had to start everything from scratch. The project started after the spring 2015 semester had ended and summer had begun, so it was a very tricky timing to curate shows with undergraduate student works since many of the students were gone already. Fortunately, we have managed to collect a nice amount of amazing student work to showcase in our first Educational Commons Curatorial Project.
What do you hope visitors will learn or take away from the exhibit?
Since this is the first exhibition of its kind, it’s an introduction to what students do in Penn's Fine Arts programs and what kind of emphasis a Penn Fine Arts Education places. I think this will be a great start to many MFA-curated undergraduate student exhibitions to come! Stay tuned!
For more information on Education Commons, the location of the exhibition, see their website here: http://commons.library.upenn.edu
Congratulations to the following students whose work is featured in the exhibition:
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