HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in partnership with host, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst present Refractions, the graduation exhibition of the 2022—2023 MA Fine Art class.

The exhibition showcases works by the graduates and their collaborators, including Melissa Cijntje, Yuxuan Cui, Kexin Hong, István Hutter, Jeehae Kim, Minsun Kim, Eliisa Loukola, Vlada Predelina, Meshkat Talebi/Olivier Terpstra, Victoria de la Torre, Eunho Yoo and Faysal Zaman.

The MA Fine Art program of HKU University of the Arts Utrecht brings together artists from different contexts and backgrounds working across a range of media and interests. Diverse life experiences and multiple viewpoints converge to allow new knowledge, awareness and understanding to emerge by sharing time, stories, concerns and fears. In this setting, care for each other’s emotional and artistic lives allows space for solidarity and mutual support to evolve, to strive for everyone’s words to be heard and valued.

Refractions applies the metaphor of the distortion of light as it passes through different materials to explore the ways different cultural and social perspectives shape one’s understanding of reality. The artists featured in Refractions share the drive to investigate and dissect the layers of the social, cultural and political issues affecting their lives and informing their work. Their practices seek to expose injustices and inequalities and to reveal the power dynamics and structures that shape their personal experiences. Mourning loss and processing trauma that may have shaped one’s life and work can be healing and build resilience. Together, they aim to create a powerful and transformative space for artistic and social awareness that echoes their attempts to bend the horizon toward more hopeful and collective speculative futures. Doing so together allows them to face uncomfortable truths, pursue forgotten or hidden narratives and minority experiences together. This resonance has fostered new understandings, empathy and growth so that they are more willing, more brave to venture beyond the visible, known or familiar.