Small ceramic test pieces arranged on printed text pages
Galateia Kefalas
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Experiential learning

PROCESS: between idea and form

First-year MFA students present work shaped through experimentation, research, and unfolding inquiry

Estimated Read Time:
1 minute
Galateia Kefalas

The School of Art Student Gallery presents PROCESS, a group exhibition featuring the work of first-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students. On view through April 8, 2026, the exhibition offers a glimpse into the early stages of graduate research and studio development.

PROCESS brings together work by Aria Evans, Galateia Kefalas, Mike Lau, Maria R. Martin, Nona Niroumand, Sara Sattari, and Fan Xia. Working across installation, performance, photography, painting, ceramics, and multimedia practices, the exhibition reflects the breadth of approaches within the MFA program.

The participating artists draw on a range of lived experiences and interdisciplinary backgrounds—spanning dance, theatre, philosophy, and lens-based media—to approach making as both research and inquiry. Their work engages questions of identity, memory, migration, queerness, embodiment, and the shifting meanings of home and belonging.

Across the exhibition, the body, material, and environment emerge as key sites of investigation. Performance and self-representation are used to explore emotional and psychological states, while installation, ceramics, and photography consider how memory and space are constructed and perceived. Questions of displacement, nostalgia, and personal and collective histories surface through processes of fragmentation, repetition, and reconstruction.

Rather than presenting resolved outcomes, PROCESS foregrounds experimentation and development. At this stage in the MFA program, students are actively testing ideas, refining methodologies, and establishing the foundations that will shape their thesis work.

PROCESS is on view in the School of Art Student Gallery, Taché Arts Complex (150 Dafoe Road, Room 158), University of Manitoba, through Wednesday, April 8, 2026.

PROCESS

First-Year MFA Group Exhibition

April 1–8, 2026

School of Art Student Gallery
158 Taché Arts Complex
umanitoba.ca/art/student-gallery

Gallery view with tall ceramic sculpture centered in exhibition space
Foreground: Galateia Kefalas; Background (L–R): Fan Xia, Maria R. Martin

About the Student Gallery

The School of Art Student Gallery presents ever-changing exhibitions throughout the academic year, typically on view for one to two weeks at a time. Exhibitions are organized by School of Art students in conjunction with the Student Art Curatorial Selection Committee, offering students an important opportunity to gain hands-on experience programming, preparing, and mounting exhibitions as part of their developing professional creative practices.

Ceramic sculpture with video projection in gallery background
Foreground: Galateia Kefalas; Background: Aria Evans
Plush material installation with clustered soft forms on wall
Maria Martin
Close-up of photographic works showing blurred figure in motion across multiple panels
Mike Lau
Painted ceramic wall pieces with blue floral patterns on orange surface
Sara Sattari
Large abstract black-and-white works arranged in grid on wall
Fan Xia
Entrance to School of Art Student Gallery with PROCESS exhibition visible inside

Boilerplate: empowering learners

At UM, we encourage life-long curiosity while providing tools – inside and outside the classroom – to succeed in a rapidly changing world. Empowering learners is one of the strategic themes you’ll find in MomentUM: Leading change together, the University of Manitoba’s 2024–2029 strategic plan.