August 24 - October 18, 2026
Exhibition Reception: October 1, 1-2:30 p.m.

In their second year, Stamps students complete a major milestone: Second Year Studio (SYS). It’s a course where, per the syllabus, students "develop the capacity to work independently by identifying, exploring, and pursuing a single independent project that involves multiple iterations."

Stamps Lecturer & Student Exhibitions Coordinator Sally Clegg notes, "Each student takes their own path, encountering questions that can shape the direction of their creative practice—how do I manage my time? How much constraint vs. freedom do I thrive on? What subject matter do I care about most deeply? How do my ideas about my future goals intersect with the work I want to make now?" At the end of the semester, students formally report on their experience in a presentation called the Sophomore Review, and a faculty panel offers individualized feedback.

Installed throughout the Art & Architecture Building, the Second Year Studio Exhibition showcases the art and design work created in this pivotal course by our rising third-year and transfer students, and invites first-year students and other newcomers to explore both the building and the creative possibilities ahead. The show features 50 students who have volunteered to participate, yet it honors every Stamps major who reaches the SYS milestone. The pieces on view span a wide array of media and capture a specific moment in each maker’s path: experiments in previously unfamiliar methods, emergent passions, creative risks taken, iterations and reiterations, and the seeds of so much future work.

As Course Coordinator, Stamps Assistant Professor Pedram Baldari both teaches and works directly with all the faculty overseeing each section to collaboratively support the entire class. He offers this reflection on the diverse collection of work on view in this year’s exhibition.

These works engage a wide range of questions and concerns. Students investigate memory, identity, materiality, ecology, technology, labor, social relationships, and the built environment through equally diverse formal approaches. While these subjects recur across the exhibition, what stands out most is not a dominant thematic direction, but a shared commitment to sustained inquiry.

SYS is intentionally structured around a different learning model than project-based courses. Rather than responding to predetermined assignments, students identify their own questions and spend an entire semester developing them through research, experimentation, critique, and multiple iterations. The emphasis is not on arriving quickly at a resolved outcome, but on cultivating the capacity to work independently, remain responsive to new discoveries, and allow the project itself to evolve through sustained engagement.

As a result, the exhibition presents more than a collection of finished works. It documents different ways of investigating, testing, and refining ideas. Some students advance through material experimentation, others through drawing, installation, performance, digital media, social engagement, or speculative approaches. Each project reflects a distinct methodology that has developed through repeated cycles of making, reflection, critique, and revision. In a sense, the dialectical process generated by the nature of this course is the most significant thread connecting this year’s exhibition. It marks a point at which students begin moving beyond solving assignments toward constructing independent practices, developing the habits of inquiry, critical reflection, and experimentation that will continue to shape their work well beyond SYS.



Exhibiting Artists and Designers
<ul class="twocol">

Nailah Aguilar

Akylah Archer

Zachary Berenbaum

Samantha Blaine

Lauren Boyce

Kas Brajkovic

Anna Browne

Lilah Chow

Isabella Cortes

Magdalena Dimovski

Leah Elliott

Aya Fadlelzebair

M. Faurote

Claire Fuller

Noelle Gall

Lacy Galligan

Abigail Garcia

Elise Goldberg

Ava Grace

Ella Graeb

Deja Green

Grace Hardy

Kore Hernández

Mikayla Holcomb

Reese Johnson

Oonagh Kossman

Kade Kuba

Avelina Kusiak

Oliver Levans

Alef Liu

Fiona Maier

Caitlyn McConville

Tyler Meerschaert

Eve Mellis

Erica Meunier

Alexis Minor

Catherine Mitzel

Charlotte Mullin

Anupama Narayan

Mia Noel

Ava Paananen

Dominique Robinson

Sophie Scott

Victoria Selektor

Samridhi Sharma

Janet Shasha

Sadie Smith

Gabriella Spagnuolo

Ava Sproull

Jesse Strohauer

David Wang

Zimu Wang

Lily Whitcomb

Lexi Wu

Melaniya Zazovskaya