For the Record is the culmination of a year-long rigorous research, experimentation, and academic growth of the 2023 SMFA Senior Thesis artists. Through a variety of materials and mediums including large-scale paintings, interactive sculptures, artist books, ceramics, and video installations, perspectives are dissected and new composites of existence are built. Addressing subjects, such as race, gender, sexual identity, home, ethics, technology, and perception, this Record aims to question the entanglement of self and community.
While these artists are transitioning into new chapters of their lives, they chose to share with us complexities of their worlds with generosity, courage and care. They are defining what is important to see on their own terms, placing emphasis through form, dedication, and reflexivity. Through creating nuanced and contradictory documentation of individual personhood, these artworks do not exist as a neutral archive but rather offer different perspectives to build a messy, personal, and challenging whole. This collection of vantage points invites viewers to look into each Record and reflect on ​​their own positionalities. Which works resonate with them and why? How do the viewer’s past shape their perception of the work? What marks will this exhibition leave on them and what will be left For the Record?

The 2023 SMFA Senior Thesis cohort invites you to encounter each work, experience the exhibition as a whole, and partake in the archive. In conversation with global, personal and institutional fluctuation, this exhibition functions as an analysis, action, and effect. While these pieces exist in the exhibition before you, we acknowledge that they also exist in the record of various spaces–marking the artists' time here.

For the past we process, for the present we share, and For the Record… we are prepared for the future.