SMFA at Tufts Presents Through Shifting Lenses, the 2025 MFA Thesis Exhibition

Please join the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA at Tufts) for the culmination of the 2025 MFA class, featuring work by artists MiJung Yun, Richard Farrell, Megan Weeda, Peyton Michelle, Lu Adami, Katie He, Foster Boyajian, Yulia Niu, Schuyler Dragoo, Chris Diani, Hannah Gray, Yining Lee, Anguo Ping, and Ariel Grubb. On view at the Aidekman Arts Center in Medford, Massachusetts, from May 6 through 18, Through Shifting Lenses is a collection of journeys and propositions, materializing a moment that contains multitudes and transforms before our eyes. Riding a train of “unprecedented” events, this group has delved deeply, and notable themes have emerged: histories and futures, frameworks and constraints, mental health and community, world-building, and the oscillation between nano and cosmic scales. 

Visitors to the gallery will encounter a range of works: drawings of volcanoes that create tension between intimate and expansive scales, domestic scene paintings that examine repetition and familial continuity, a wall of informal drawings offering cultural exploration of suburban life. Autobiographical works chart coming-of-age transitions and illuminate the relationship between self and community. Other pieces delicately weave physical and familial threads into intergenerational narratives.

The dynamics of urban expansion and destruction come through in various media. Color-stained canvases visualize gravitational processes, while fantastical structures employ game engine software. Environmental engagement appears in works that connect viewers with non-human species and artificial intelligence. An LGBTQ community tribute documents struggles through waves of oppression and freedom. Fandom-informed world-building introduces diverse characters and performance modes. Some works portray loneliness, quarantine, solo travel, and health fears. In others, common plastic bags become human stand-ins and are nearly obliterated by language-presenting lines. The presentation of a stop-motion video underwater story explores freedom and justice with exuberant materiality.

Together, these works compose a picture of thoughtful invention and unbridled enthusiasm for making a new world in the face of uncertainty. They invite us to traverse multiple perspectives on space, time, identity, and imagination.

To learn more, visit smfa.tufts.edu/mfa-thesis.