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Chicago National Portfolio Day + Saturday with SAIC
Join us on campus for one of the nation's largest portfolio days, plus come a day early for "Saturday with SAIC" and learn how to make the most of your NPD experience!
Take a Campus Tour
Explore our campus by taking a student-led in-person or virtual tour.
Take an Art Class this Fall
Non-credit online and in-person courses for adults, teens and kids start in September and October.
Curious. Bold. Ambitious.
You're ready to take risks and challenge others. You're open to change — and want to change things. This is your playground.
#2 Fine Arts Program in the U.S.
U.S. News & World Report
Best Grad Schools
#2
“I was trying to see the complexities of how Black people exist in art spaces.” - Iyomi Ho Ken
Inspired by a critical studies Afrofuturism course, this fashion, fibers, and photography artist created an award-winning senior project.
The Artist
Iyomi Ho Ken
Raised in a Chinese-Jamaican family, Iyomi Ho Ken's (BFA 2021) work focuses on self and race. Iyomi created The OtherSide—a fashion portfolio and a photography project—for her senior thesis. Grappling with questions of identity, she wanted to propose a future both fantastical and real. “There’s a portal in the background of the photographs that can take you to other worlds, but there’s also the world right now.”
Image Credits: Image courtesy of the artist
Inspiration
After taking a critical studies class on Afrofuturity taught by Associate Professor, Adj. D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Iyomi decided to focus the collection on being Black and what Afrofuturity meant to her. “I was really fascinated with the theories and ideas.”
Image Credits: Hilary Higgins, Chicago Tribune, 2018.
Dialogue
Many of Iyomi's classmates didn’t know how to critique her work through the lens of race. She discussed her frustration with her professors, and they created an art critique specifically for students who wanted a panel that would talk openly about race as it related to their work. “It was the best critique I ever had at school. It wasn’t just people of color or Black people, but also people who were established and who knew the language."
Image Credits: Image courtesy of the artist
After SAIC
Iyomi won two prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America awards for her senior project totaling $75,000. Today, she lives in Chicago and is a designer for LA-based fashion brand House of Aama. She's also continuing to explore identity through her own projects.
A person in an ornate purple dress on a reflective backdrop
What Is This?
For more than 155 years, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has been a leader in educating the world’s most influential artists, designers, and scholars.
The Power of Listening
How Art Heals
SAIC Initiatives
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Happening Now at SAIC
Mac Pierce Studio Tour
From a sunny lake-view studio on Michigan Avenue, graduate student Mac Pierce is building a cannon.
Upcoming Events
October 15
School of the Art Institute of Chicago 280 South Columbus Dr. Chicago, IL 60603
October 21
School of the Art Institute of Chicago 280 S. Columbus Dr. Chicago, IL 60603
