Now & There, the first of two University of Illinois at Chicago Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibitions features the work of Leticia Bernaus, Stella Brown, Daniel Carroll, Malte Stiehl, and Tamara Becerra Valdez. With close attention to the connection between place and identity, each artist examines the overt complexities ever present in memory, whether collective or personal, actual or imagined. Memory, often considered a mercurial human function, is one that wavers and is ever-changing. Although fluid in nature and multi-layered, memory follows specific and real paths, shaping our understanding of ourselves and one another. Likewise, nostalgia remains in constant flux, susceptible to the analysis of remembering and forgetting, unaware of its successive distortions, vulnerable to manipulation, predisposed to being long dormant and periodically revived. Through their unique practices, the artists in Now & There negotiate memory, and as an extension, nostalgia, as a site to explore untold, unseen or forgotten histories.

Leticia Bernaus
Stella Brown
Daniel Carroll
Malte Stiehl
Tamara Becerra Valdez