Venice as a Classroom

Mechtild Widrich and Lou Mallozzi stand in the gallery with students

Image courtesy of Undercurrents

Nearly every college gives students the opportunity to study abroad, but at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), these experiences look a little different. This winter, 18 SAIC students traveled to Venice, Italy, to mount an exhibition that they designed and curated.

Artist Lomachenko installs her work in front of the window — Anya Lomachenko installs *Undersky* at the Czok Foundation in Venice, with the help of Department Chair and Art History, Theory, and Criticism Professor Mechtild Widrich. The work draws a connection between Ukrainian camouflage nets and Venetian lace—two traditions of communal women's making that share a delicate, intricate visual language—to examine how communities protect endangered heritage in the face of war and environmental threat.

The exhibition, Undercurrents, was the product of a course taught by faculty members Mechtild Widrich and Lou Mallozzi. The course brought together Art History students, who acted as curators, with students pursuing painting, sculpture, installation, video, sound, and design. During the fall, students gathered to develop a curatorial framework, design the exhibition, and create the artworks that would be on display.

“We didn't put parameters on artists and what they were making,” shared student Jen LaMastra. “There was a lot of freedom, which meant we were sculpting the exhibit to form around what the artists were interested in as it related to Venice. We all got to know each other through the work.”

A person stands over the piece FAKER by Jen LaMastra — Jen LaMastra, *FAKER.* Bedsheet, embroidery floss, embroidery hoop, beads, thread, stabilizer, 2025.
FAKER looks at the subtle performances women pick up in daily life. Again and again, a faceless figure on all fours—a pose seen in ads, movies, and online—shows how certain gestures become routine, even unconscious. LaMastra’s slow, repetitive stitching turns the body into a place where pressure, want, and fear leave their marks. The piece asks us to think about how often femininity acts as a mask: something shaped to keep the peace, feel wanted, or simply stay safe—and what it could mean to step outside that role.

The class studied Venice and its history, ultimately deciding that the exhibition would explore how Chicago and Venice—two cities shaped by water and layered histories—navigate change, preservation, and resilience. This resulted from an open dialogue with all participants, working together toward a shared goal. “There was always space to ask what was working, what wasn’t, and how each piece fit into the larger exhibition. It also meant we were all exploring different sides of Venice at the same time, approaching the city from completely different angles,” said student Anya Lomachenko.

Anya Lomachenko's installation hands over a window — Anya Lomachenko's fully installed *Undersky*, net, fabric, rope, 2025.

“Many of the works go beyond geography,” shared student Tzu Ying (Cara) Cheng. “Rather than being site-specific in a literal sense, they grow out of the artists’ inner worlds, cultural backgrounds, and personal experiences.”

In January, the full class traveled to Italy. The exhibition was staged at the Czok Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of artistic and cultural projects in Italy. It was most of the students' first time in Venice. “We learned about Venice from readings, Zoom meetings, and technical drawings, but to have your body smooshed on the vaporetto with the canal filled with gondolas and other boats is something you can't know until you experience it,” said LaMastra.

They quickly got to work, installing their pieces in the foundation’s gallery space, but they also had the opportunity to experience local art and the work of artisans, such as a visit to a mosaic workshop in the Canarregio district in Venice. Their exhibition was designed to be in deep conversation with Venice, so it was particularly meaningful for the students to be in the city during the winter, when it’s mostly inhabited by locals. “Since we were there during a time when tourists weren’t the main audience, it felt like we were speaking more directly to the local community,” said Lomachenko.

Flows Between Live audio from contact microphone, ultrasonic distance sensor, humidifier, dosing pump, multi-channel sound Beile Hu A contact microphone on the gallery window detects the unseen currents of daily life: our footsteps, movements, and interactions with the gallery and the street. This real-time data becomes a multi-channel soundscape, revealing how our built environment listens to and transforms traces of human presence. — Beile Hu installs their work *Flows Between.* Live audio from contact microphone, ultrasonic distance sensor, humidifier, dosing pump, multi-channel sound, 2025. A contact microphone on the gallery window detects the unseen currents of daily life: our footsteps, movements, and interactions with the gallery and the street. This real-time data becomes a multi-channel soundscape, revealing how our built environment listens to and transforms traces of human presence.

For many students, simply seeing their work in the space was transformative. “Once we entered the city, the works no longer felt static or confined to the exhibition space,” said Cheng.

The trip not only gave students the hands-on experience of curating and mounting an exhibition—in a foreign country, no less—it also made them think deeply about the importance of collaboration. The trip was “...a kind of magic space I hope to keep and recreate in all my community making,” said LaMastra. “I realized how important community is to me. Making and celebrating each other together is actually not just part of my need as a human, but also part of my art practice.”

Selfie time! The Undercurrents cohort poses for a picture in Venice after a successful opening — After a successful exhibition, the cohort made sure to document both the work and their collective joy.

The students learned from one another and their faculty members, able to create something together they never could have imagined on their own. “We all came from different disciplines and areas of expertise, which allowed us to be able to challenge and inform one another in meaningful ways,” said Lomachenko. By the time they left Italy, it was clear: at SAIC, studying abroad isn't just about seeing the world—it’s about helping to create it.

Inside the Exhibition

A stack of exhibition catalogs on a flat surface, their covers featuring a close-up photograph of deep blue-gray rippling water with the word "Undercurrents" set in white type. Additional printed materials are partially visible in the background.

Image Courtesy of Undercurrents

The Undercurrents exhibition catalog, designed by students as part of the course.

The illuminated storefront of the Czok Foundation at night, viewed from the street. Through large windows and an open door, visitors mingle inside the gallery, with Anya Lomachenko's intricate textile work Undersky visible in the left window.

Image Courtesy of Undercurrents

Looking into Czok Foundation in Venice, Italy: viewers, students and faculty gather for the opening of Undercurrents.

A group of approximately twelve people seated in a circle of chairs inside the Czok Foundation gallery, engaged in conversation during an artist talk. Anya Lomachenko's Undersky textile is visible on the wall behind them, alongside Rome Wareham's bronze sculptures on white pedestals. Jasmine Johnson's open suitcase installation sits on the floor at the center of the circle.

Image Courtesy of Undercurrents

SAIC students, faculty, and guests gather for an artist talk and roundtable at the Czok Foundation, with works from Undercurrents—including Jasmine Johnson's I was nesting so I planted a city and Anya Lomachenko's Undersky—visible throughout the space.

A close-up of two hands with rings turning the pages of a blue-gray artist's book resting on a white illuminated surface. The pages contain printed text and translucent paper layers.

Image Courtesy of the Artist

Engagement was encouraged with Lili Xie's So the Body Keeps its Score.

visitor with short blond hair stands with their back to the camera, looking closely at Scott Kuffner's large figurative painting Minerva Overlooking Venice. To the right on a darker wall, Kuffner's diptych Adam & Eve is also visible.

Image courtesy of Undercurrents

Scott Kuffner's paintings Minerva Overlooking Venice and Adam & Eve are appreciated by a visitor from Venice. Minerva Overlooking Venice is ink, charcoal, conte pencil on paper. Minerva—Roman goddess of wisdom, sponsor of arts and trade—both turns away from and turns toward the viewer. Her gestural ambiguity is echoed in the landscape; a version of Venice that defies logic. This refusal of mutual understanding isolates the viewer, encouraging reflection upon one's relationship to the city of water.

A visitor wearing a black bowler hat and red jacket reads an exhibition pamphlet while viewing two small square paintings mounted vertically on a white gallery wall. The paintings depict smooth brown stones in stark light and shadow. A small sculptural object sits on a pedestal below them. The work is The Midway by Younsoo and Jack Flynn.

Image Courtesy of Undercurrents

A visitor views The Midway by Younsoo and Jack Flynn at the Undercurrents exhibition. Found eroded building fragments from the Chicago lakefront, oil on canvas. At the heart of The Midway are three weathered stones found on the Chicago lakefront, brought together and reinterpreted in two narrative paintings. These works explore how fragments of landscape can hold stories and memories. By depicting the stones as if they are figures in conversation, the artists encourage viewers to reflect on ideas of scale, time, and the changing identities materials assume as they journey through the world. The title gestures both toward Chicago’s geographic midpoint and a sense of being in transition—mirroring the stones’ ongoing cycles of erosion, transformation, and renewal.

A student holds a small yellow card and speaks to a group of attendees gathered in front of the Undercurrents exhibition wall text, which lists participating artists and collaborators. Colorful tags from Shirley Zhong's Wheelchair Book are visible on a table in the foreground.

Image Courtesy of the Artist

An SAIC student addresses opening reception guests in front of the Undercurrents exhibition wall text at the Czok Foundation.

A black wheelchair covered in dozens of colorful paper tags and luggage labels of varying sizes, shapes, and colors. Visible text on the tags includes words like "Assistance," "Standby," "Late Check-In," "Are You Here," and "Danger." The work sits on a concrete floor against a white gallery wall.

Image Courtesy of the Artist

Shirley Zhong, Wheelchair Book, wheelchair, baggage tags, guide. Installed in Venice, the work covers an empty wheelchair with luggage tags—bureaucratic markers of transit and special handling—to examine disability, mobility, and what we carry with us when we travel.

Four people in conversation at the Undercurrents opening reception inside the Czok Foundation gallery. Two students laugh with a man in a blazer and a woman smiling beside him, with artwork visible on the walls behind them.

Image Courtesy of Undercurrents

Students, SAIC faculty and guests connect at the Undercurrents opening reception.

A neon light sculpture mounted low on the floor in a darkened room. The glowing blue and white text reads "(sun, moon, earth)" on one undulating line and "{ how (water)(rise) }" on a second line below, with the tubing forming a wave-like shape that casts a blue glow on the surrounding floor and wall.

Image Courtesy of the Artist

Snow (Sinuo) Chen, a poem about tide breath, light, air, glass, electricity, text, and data. On view at Undercurrents, Czok Foundation, Venice.

An open hard-sided suitcase lying flat on a concrete gallery floor, its base filled with dark soil containing small pink scarlet runner bean sprouts. The lid holds a painted canvas with fluid blue, white, and green brushstrokes. Small bundles of wood prop up the suitcase's corners.

Image Courtesy of the Artist

Jasmine Johnson, I was nesting so I planted a city, wood, canvas, acrylic paint, scarlet runner beans, dirt, and suitcase. Installed in Venice, the work fills an open suitcase with sprouting scarlet runner beans—a plant whose own transatlantic migration stripped it of cultural meaning—to ask what is lost when people are disconnected from the things they consume and carry.

A visitor holds a glazed ceramic spoon over a white porcelain bowl filled with murky water, a thin drip falling from the spoon's tip onto the bowl's surface. The work sits on a white pedestal with a label reading "Soo Kim, Spoon with a Hole, 2025." A second visitor holding a drink is partially visible at right.

Image Courtesy of the Artist

Soo Kim, Spoon with a Hole, clay, glass, water, and glazed porcelain, 2025. Crafted from Chicago's soil, the interactive work invites visitors to scoop water from a bowl with a leaking spoon—the tension between grasping and letting go a meditation on migration, displacement, and what cannot be contained across geopolitical boundaries.

the word "undercurrents" in a white sans serif font on top of a moving body of water close up

Graphic Courtesy of Undercurrents

Branding for Undercurrents, an exhibition conceived and mounted by SAIC students at the Czok Foundation in Venice, Italy, January 2025. See the complete works here.

Inside the Exhibition

March 2026: Faculty and Staff Accomplishments