Places We Carry: SMFA at Tufts Juried Student Exhibition Explores Migration, Identity, Culture, Family

Six current and former students of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts University explore how migration, memory and cultural inheritance shape identity in the new exhibition Places We Carry: SMFA at Tufts Juried Student Exhibition, on view from November 21, 2026 - April 18, 2027 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), in the Edward H. Linde Gallery (Gallery 168).

We inherit aspects of our identity: languages, traditions, and stories of places we may have never seen ourselves. The artists in this exhibition draw upon their own migratory experiences or reconstruct the journey of their relatives, tracing cross-cultural heritages along the way.

Featured artists and their work include:

• Liangsi Wang (MFA, AG26), who travels to his parents’ hometowns in China, photographing sites that were significant to them as children;
• Bianca Daher (MFA, AG27), who researches her family archive, tracing connections and making gaps in knowledge visible through paint;
• Artist duo Co&Lee—comprised of DBCO (MFA, AG26) and SangBin Lee (MFA, AG26)—who visualize the barriers of visa applications and immigration through a wall of redacted documents;
• Antonio Angel (BFA, A26), who explores the intersections of migration, memory, labor, and identity through sculpture and performance; and
• Christine Chiang (MFA, AG26), who turns to her family’s traditional calligraphy and creates ceramic vessels and glazes that reflect the union of cultural traditions and her identity.

These artists treat family history and identity as material. Their work asks how lineage can be carried through storytelling, how unfamiliar places could feel like home, and how fragments of experience may be assembled into new forms of belonging.

The exhibition is organized by Kendall Murphy (AG26), a recent master’s graduate of the History of Art and Architecture program at Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS); and Kehayr Brown-Ransaw, a current Master of Fine Arts candidate at Tufts pursuing a concentration in Museum Studies. Mentorship was provided by Daisy Alejandre, curatorial assistant in Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, with support from Tufts University Art Galleries.

The exhibition is generously supported by Tufts University Art Galleries and SMFA at Tufts. Additional support is provided by the Callaghan Family Fund for Contemporary Exhibitions.

“This exhibit provides an opportunity for SMFA at Tufts students and alumni to exhibit their work in one of the country’s top art museums,” said Scheri Fultineer, dean of SMFA at Tufts. “Partnerships with cultural institutions like the MFA provide valuable opportunities for artists to share their work and ideas with new audiences.”

The SMFA Juried Exhibition is a biannual program that features a peer-to-peer curatorial experience, showcasing work by current SMFA at Tufts students and developed with graduate students and recent alumni from SMFA at Tufts, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and the Museum Studies Program at Tufts GSAS.

This presentation is one of a series of programs that reflects the MFA’s commitment to the next generation of young, promising artists and curators and continues the historic relationship between the two institutions, which dates to SMFA at Tufts’ founding in 1876. The exhibition is especially poignant this year as the school celebrates its 150th anniversary.

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