Thesis Screening 2025, SVA MFA Photography, Video and Related Media

School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Thesis Screening 2025, a film screening of works by four graduates of the class of 2025: Boya Lei, Jiaqi Mao, Mengyao Xu, and Yunchang Zhang. The screening will take place on Tuesday, September 2nd at the SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street, New York City. Doors will open to the public at 5:30pm, with the screening beginning at 6:00pm.

There is nothing quite like art school. For two or three years of your life, you immerse yourself in the challenge of self expression through visual means. Usually, this takes a highly personal turn, since how can you truly know what you are trying to say unless you take the time to get to know yourself and what drives you? You have access to the best facilities, professors give their focused attention to your growth, and experts in the field come to tell you more about what awaits on the other side of the degree. When you have done it right, you spend most of your hours quasi obsessed with the ideas that drive your work. Your peers are invested in your artistic growth, and you learn how to both give and take critique. When the process works as it should, you emerge a stronger artist and more interesting person. Seeing yourself in a long-running river of creative output that came before you, the challenge is to contribute something that both acknowledges what has been done before, but more importantly, it is to add something new to the discourse.

The students of the SVA MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media have done this and more, pouring hours into their projects and thoughtfully defending their work to earn their degrees. I am encouraged at the quality of their work and inspired by their commitment to their art practice. While varied in form and content, the projects pull strongly towards understanding cultural, generational, and familial relationships, and interpolating personal experiences to more universal understandings of each artist's place in the world.

In the current reordering of the world and a dawning era of cultural isolationism, 2025 will likely be remembered as a rupture point that delineates a before and after in terms of artist’s freedom of expression. While they may not have imagined it as first year students, the SVA MFA class of 2025 stands as a testament to the excellence of American higher education. These students should feel exceptionally proud of their accomplishment. I trust that their vision, creativity, and resilience will help carry us through what is to come.

Da Jiao, Boya Lei

In a fascinating video exploration of the Daoist folk ritual of Da Jiao, a communal blessing ceremony in Northwest China, Boya Lei brings viewers into an intimate and rarely documented ritual. What is exceptional about Lei’s approach is her refreshing sensitivity as a young woman working to better understand the ceremony and the underlying conventions behind it, including the exclusion of women in some aspects of the ritual. Lei incorporates her own voice, which elevates a compelling story into an even more engaging experience for viewers, who are squarely positioned from her point of view.

Lao Lao, Jiaqi Mao

Exploring complex and history-laden perspectives of three generations of women, Jiaqi Mao’s Lao Lao uses video and animation to explore relationships between women, as well as their relationships with the men in their lives. Thoughtful and observant, the film allows the characters to speak for themselves, expressing the pressures of domestic labor and the burdens of womanhood that feel familiar and enduring.

Private Conversations, Mengyao Xu

Using scripted video and personal documentation, Mengyao Xu’s Private Conversations gives viewers a glimpse into the internal frames of mind of four archetypical young women in China. Each one has a highly personal story to tell, and while professional actors fill the roles, the artist occasionally intersperses her own singular perspective, which makes the scripted feel all the more real. Interactions between women figure prominently and center women’s voices in ways not often seen in narrative filmmaking.

A Watch Made of Paper, Yunchang Zhang

A documentary storyteller, Yunchang Zhang, uses video to tell the story of a Chinese gallery owner in New York who is processing the grief caused by the death of her husband. Contemplative and empathic, Zhang’s approach to filmmaking encourages a strong bond between the audience and her subject, bringing to light the small daily moments that comprise a meaningful life.

by Noelle Théard, Senior Photo Editor, The New Yorker

Host or Publisher SVA MFA Photography, Video and Related Media