Ways of Seeing Pratt: Exhibitions

This article is part of “Ways of Seeing” in Prattfolio’s Looking at Us issue.

Exhibitions have long been a fixture at Pratt, for the campus community and beyond. During the 2023–2024 academic year, Pratt’s public galleries organized some of their more ambitious and critically acclaimed shows to date. They ranged from cutting-edge downtown NYC fashion to meditative reflections on environmental destruction, and the gallery spaces hosted events from an experimental “drone” music concert to a Vogue-featured runway show. Here’s a look at those shows and a glimpse of what’s on for this year.

Image at top: Installation view of An Egg in a Dream in a Landscape. Photo by Megan Proctor, BFA Photography ’25

Amazonia

Amazonia, curated by Berta Sichel with Patricia Capa, wove together a group of artists and artworks whose material shared the common thread of the Amazon Rainforest. The exhibition introduced the framework of “ecocriticism,” a theoretical position that simultaneously addresses environment, climate change, and aesthetic ephemera. Sounds, colors, and traditional practices from the Amazon Rainforest territory appeared alongside reminders of the territory’s ever-present threat of extinction and extermination.

No Wire Hangers

Christina Thurston and Dean Sidaway, co-curators of the Fall 2023 Faculty/Staff Fashion Exhibition, spoke of the fashion department at Pratt as an ecosystem of experimentation, where formal as well as political themes imbue textiles and garments with expressive meaning. In No Wire Hangers, motifs that united the diverse practitioners included the use of crochet, weaves, and knits; reflections on the experiences of women, queer, and Black artists; reproductive rights; reinterpretations of traditional garments; and a balance between gossamer delicacy and whimsical play. 

The New Village: Ten Years of New York Fashion

The New Village: Ten Years of New York Fashion, curated by Jennifer Minniti and Matthew Linde, paid homage to downtown NYC’s world of avant-garde fashion and art. By assembling looks ranging from street wear to couture alongside installations and sculptures, the exhibition constructed its very own “village” of artists and fashion designers. As Ada O’Higgins writes in her review of The New Village for Artforum, the exhibition gathered together a set of “underground legends, lingering on the lips and gracing the bodies of downtown trendsetters, from emerging DJs to established creative directors and unemployed party monsters.”

An Egg in a Dream in a Landscape

An Egg in a Dream in a Landscape at the Schafler Gallery showcased an expansive range of styles and practices of the faculty and staff of Pratt’s Film/Video Department. Curators Emily Rose Apter and Inney Prakash both specialize in film festivals; An Egg in a Dream in a Landscape marked their debut gallery exhibition. The pair faced a unique challenge: the group show included five projections, a dozen monitors, and one four-channel sound installation, among collages and wall works. Despite the many forms of media, Apter and Prakash organized a show with both an overarching narrative and careful attention to individual accomplishments. 

The Apex Is Nothing

The Apex Is Nothing brought together paintings, drawings, and textiles codified through the languages of shape, data, mark-making, and tactility. The work of abstract expressionist painter Alfred Jensen, who is known for his use of grids and thick impasto, served as a jumping-off point for the exhibition. The fourteen other included artists are linked by their use of mathematics, numerical calculation, ancient calendars, lists, and patterns as methodology and subject matter. Curators Ken Weathersby and John O’Connor define these elements as “extra-aesthetic imperatives”—systems that permeate artworks from beyond the picture plane. 

Summer 2024 Shows

To Live in the Imagination showcased alumni photography at Pratt Manhattan Gallery. Pieces of You, Pieces of Me, a School of Art exhibition at Schafler Gallery, featured students and recent graduates who are African American, African, Caribbean, or identify as having African descent. 

On Now

Seeing Sound

Curator Barbara London’s concept for Seeing Sound introduces sound as a central and dynamic avenue for contemporary art. The 10 included artists engage with sound in various ways: audio-video installation, kinetic sculpture, and audio-trigger technology are all present in the exhibition. The artists use sound as an avenue to address crucial topics, such as climate change, technology, and power. In lieu of incorporating headphones into the exhibition, Seeing Sound offers visitors a communal listening experience. 

Seeing Sound is on view at Pratt Manhattan Gallery through December 17, 2024.

Undoing the Border Fantasy

Undoing the Border Fantasy is curated by Swati Piparsania and Jess Saldaña, organized in collaboration with the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. From physical to ideological, the concept of the “border” denotes divisions, inclusions, and exclusions; simultaneously, it connotes the possibilities of traversal and transcendence. Inspired by Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture, the curators set out to showcase Pratt faculty and staff artwork in an exhibition that proposes a conception of borders as a “third space” of resistance and emergence. By blurring the boundaries between traditional frameworks in arts and research, Undoing the Border Fantasy aims to expand linear understandings and representations of borders, challenge binary thinking, and call for transformation. 

Undoing the Border Fantasy is on view at Schafler Gallery through December 7, 2024.

COMING SOON: Spring 2025

*dates tentative

Black Dress II
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
January 24–March 22, 2025
Opening reception: January 23, 6 pm–8 pm

Dona Ann McAdams/Abby Robinson
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
April 18–June 7, 2025
Opening reception: April 17, 6 pm–8 pm 

Architecture + AI Exhibition
Schafler Gallery 
January–March 2025 

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Written and edited in collaboration with Pratt Exhibitions, with contributions by Andrew Riad, MFA Creative Writing ’25, and Sandra (Xinyu) Ye, MS Information Experience Design ’26