Here is where we greet our audience, talk about how excited we are to see you, and ask if you want a beer or glass of wine while walking you over to look at the artwork. The moment and place where we recall the incredible dedication and hours and love that went into making this show happen. But, would it hurt to mention the “almost” moments we’ve had? Almost being the last class to graduate, almost being the first class of the reimagined SFAI, or that this show itself almost didn't happen. Instead, through sheer willpower, we (the students) showed up (on zoom) in search of stable ground. We pushed past declining capacity, and created a new space deep within the digital ether to collectively activate our work on what often felt like an 8% battery.
We are here through these devices because that is all we’ve got—an online exhibition. Because we want this ritual and maintaining one is a way to tell ourselves, everything is the same! The ground is still there, so we turn on our devices, activate the celebration rituals, and be witness to each other’s existence and in this case our final culminating work of our time at SFAI. So, we require our pats on the back, and gold stars on our foreheads. We’ve earned it.
Among all the things the internet contains (funny chihuahua memes, oddly satisfying goo, and conspiracy theories), it is weird how this celebration will remain forever frozen as a descriptive document of our graduation in cyberspace—instead of being an embodied moment etched into our unreliable memory. A rectangular shape that contains a controlled experience, and a fleeting image for the spectator, that ironically lasts forever. So in no small feat, the 2020 Summer and Fall BFA class found the energy to present 8% an exhibition of works by Alise Anderson, Ashlyn Forbes, Ami Sioux, Anguo Ping, Christina Aguilera, Gregory Blanche, John., Jusun Seo, Katerina Camejo, Lorena Ciccia, Mabel Meza, and Michael Martinez.
