Harsh is Where We Live
Syracuse University’s School of Art and Department of Film and Media Arts, MFA Thesis 2026
Curated by Evan Starling Davis
March 12-15, 2026
Opening Thursday March 12, 6-8pm
Harsh is Where We Live is an exhibition of works by M.F.A. thesis students in the School of Art and Department of Film and Media Arts at the Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Exhibition opening reception: March 12, 6–8pm
Panel discussion: March 14 2–4pm, Leigh Ledare, Emma Hapner and Stephanie Wang-Breal in conversation with the curator.
In the exhibition Harsh Is Where We Live, curator Evan Starling Davis presents a group of artists exploring what it means to reside in a world seemingly at odds with morality itself. Practically, the exhibition serves as a gathering space, interweaving the work of seventeen emerging artists responding to the sociopolitical conditions they embrace and refuse. It asks viewers to pause and breathe—to reflect. To listen. To reconsider what has been perceived as immovable truth. From this space emerges the possibility of a new vantage point: one that reconsiders our relationship to the world, our upbringings, and the environmental forces that have shaped our ways of seeing.
The exhibition is curated by Evan Starling Davis and featuring work by: Reyad Abedin, Umar Bashir, Teddy Berg, Atienah Cape, Jared Dominique, Carla Erausquin, Taylor Gearhart, Sophia Hashemi, Huimin Huang, David Kossack, Dasol Park, Duyen Pham, Sarah Rokh, Sanjana Sharma, Marianna Smith, Carl Voss, Jiayue Yu.