Synecdoche: Identity Through _____ brought together ten Texas State students in a collaborative exhibition examining identity through community, intimacy, queerness, Blackness and other personal perspectives.
The project developed within a professional practice and portfolio class, with the students collectively choosing the theme before creating individual responses.
One theme, multiple artistic languages
The exhibition included ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, painting, photography and drawing.
Halle Dillard approached identity through intimacy, femininity, introspection and nostalgia, drawing on journaling, prose and ideas of self and queer love.
Kerian Greer used drawing and biomorphic sculpture to examine relationships between neurological or psychological concepts, visual experience and mental interpretation.
Avery Michel explored an evolving sense of self through an LGBTQ+ perspective, with references to graphic novels, religion and mythology.
Photographer Asia Estelle focused on Blackness and Black experience, extending earlier work connected with natural hair and identity.
Collaboration as part of the exhibition
The students were responsible not only for making the art but also for selecting the venue, organising the event and raising funds.
That practical work made the exhibition itself part of their professional training.
Synecdoche used a shared title without forcing a shared conclusion. Instead, identity emerged through the differences between ten artists and the ways each chose to complete the blank in “Identity Through _____.”