The Anderson and VCUarts are excited to announce the 2025 VCUarts Undergraduate Juried Exhibition on view November 13–December 6 at The Anderson, juried by Anisa Olufemi Director of Programs and Curator at Hamiltonian Artists. 52 Students were selected from 11 VCUarts departments for inclusion in this year’s exhibition.
November 13, 2025
Juror Lecture: 5 PM
Awards Ceremony: 6 PM
Exhibition Reception: 6:30-8 PM
Participating Artists:
Zora Weir-Gertzog, Zoe Lindblad, William Love IV, Viktor Marion, Timothy Daniel, Tiffany Bedser, Taylor Freeman, Sydney Bourdeau, Susan Juarez Sarceno, Stephanie Corales, Spencer Strebe, Sophie Nave, Sol Jun, Sara Omer, Rowan Leary, Rose Cumiskey, Rebecca Karabin, Rebecca Karabin, Raya Freeborn, Norah Strauss, Noah Birkeland, Milena Paul, Marian Dress, Lindsey Schwartz, Lindsay Voelsing, Kyle O’Shea, Kiera O’Harrow, Kate Snodgress, Justin R. Cockrell, Jennifer Nguyen, Jayden Gail Stanley, Jamie Ryan, Hannah Gallagher, Gabbie Bradburn, FIona Dumais, Eva McMullan, Ethan Young, Ethan Drake, Ella Lowrey, EK Shaver, Diana Denny, Cedar Krisch, Aya Zejjari, Avery Hunter-Holmes, Audrey Vizard, Anthony Hernandez, Anneke McDonald, Angella Akoto, Amy Wang, Allison Pully, Aitor Villar Pardo, Aija Bowditch, Adele Luck
Theme:
“Chat, is this real?”
What is now an ironic and increasingly ubiquitous phrase first began as a genuine inquiry—digital creators asking viewers in their livestream audience, aka “chat,” to confirm
whether or not the thing they just saw or read is real or fake. In 2023, famed Twitch and Youtube creator iShowSpeed went viral posing this question in reaction to clearly fabricated content, expanding both its usage and meaning beyond the predominantly Gen Z and Gen Alpha streamersphere, and into the everyday. The same can be said for chat itself, now a catchall term for addressing people, an individual or any perceived audience (search: why is my kid calling me chat?)
With the rise of Twitch and Tik Tok, the landscape of digital culture has grown more nuanced, ever-changing, and omnipresent. Trending livestreams and sounds (see: nothing beats a Jet2 holiday) serve as catalysts for cultural production and phenomena. Clips are appropriated infinitely into related and unrelated situations, activities and expressions—contexts are stitched and stretched to the point that origin often loses all relevance and just when you think a piece of content cannot possibly go any more viral, someone acts it out in front of you.
Today, the excess of cultural production within the url world regularly spills over and into irl interactions. Chat, is this real? leans into the consequential blur between clarity and incoherence, authenticity and artifice, facts and total nonsense. It asks, how does the memetic, hyper-relational nature of these new digital platforms—along with their rapid integration of AI bots—influence the way we listen, respond, and process in real life? Artists are invited to consider imitation and originality, projection and virality, relation and illegibility.
About the Juror:
Anisa Olufemi M. (she/they) is a curator, writer and cultural worker dedicated to amplifying the work of underrepresented emerging artists—within and without arts institutions.
Pulling at common threads between mother lands and chocolate cities, Anisa’s contributions as a cultural worker seek to illuminate, amend, and reimagine Black life pre- and post-emancipation. Their independent curatorial projects are often underpinned by critical fabulation that ponders such mother lands, and the possibilities of what they theorize as The Black Pastoral.
Looking to the South and the Caribbean, Anisa’s research is seeded by ancestral and contemporary Black cultural productions—in particular, those that center pleasure, caretaking, and faith. They are a co-recipient of Washington Project for the Arts’ Wherewithal Research Grant (2023) and 3Arts’ Ignite Fund (2022) for the development of The Gospel Truth: Sonic Architectures of Chicago House and Go-Go Music.
To date, Anisa has mounted exhibitions in galleries, museums, and alternative art spaces in Washington, DC and Chicago, and presented research at various institutions including the Cincinnati Art Museum and the University of Oregon. They hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School Of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Anisa lives and works in Washington, D.C. They currently serve as the Director of Programs and Curator at Hamiltonian Artists.
