How One Student Is Using TikTok to Break Down Walls in the Art World

by Ishani Synghal (MFA 2021)

When a family tragically lost one of their children, they reached out to a community studio in Michigan to commission a funeral urn. For the design, they asked that it mirror an urn from the anime Naruto. School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) student Micah Sweezie (BFA 2022), a member of the studio, earnestly volunteered to fulfill their request.

“All of my peers in this studio … didn’t know what anime or Naruto was, so I volunteered myself as I felt best fit to accept this commission to honor this child,” Sweezie said. Sweezie posted a video on TikTok about their experience creating the urn, which found unexpected resonance amongst the app’s community.

In the video, Sweezie takes the viewer through their process—cutting the clay, shaping it, and glazing it—and talks about the significance of the object. “I think there is a beauty in the objects and art we use to extend the existence and memory of those around us that have passed,” they share in the video.

When they posted it to TikTok, they had no idea the response they would get. Over the next several days, it received more than 18 million views.

This wasn’t the first time Sweezie had posted about their art. TikTok is an important platform for their practice. It has not only allowed Sweezie to connect with other artists and potential collaborators, it’s also changed how they think about accessibility and the exhibition and performance of art. “TikTok has reshaped how accessible and consumable my art practice is and who specifically my audience is,” they said. “I hope to impact individuals with my art within and outside exhibition spaces.”

“TikTok has reshaped how accessible and consumable my art practice is and who specifically my audience is.”

Born in America, Sweezie spent the first few years of their life living in Vietnam. Sweezie and their family then moved to Michigan, and they attended Kalamazoo Valley Community College before transferring to SAIC.

Sweezie’s roots and identity are central to their practice. “It is more than just clay,” they shared. Their work contends with what it means to be Asian American in the context of colonialism, memory, race, gender, appropriation, sex, and the power of storytelling. “I feel like what makes my art mine is its recognizable iconography crossed with queer-coded, kitsch functionality.”