SECOND HOLE SECOND WAVE brings together five graduating MFA artists: Alexa Burrell, Vincent Chong, Enam Gbewonyo, Hudson Hatfield, and Bailey Scieszka. Working across sculpture, installation, video, painting, photography, and textiles, these artists return to familiar forms, images, materials, and histories. Rather than treating the past as fixed, they approach it as something still active, something that continues to shape how people move through the world, how they are seen, and how they make meaning.

The title points to two related ideas. “Second hole” suggests making another way through. If the first opening was made by someone else, under someone else’s rules, then a second hole is a new opening made out of need, pressure, or refusal. Across the exhibition, the artists test existing forms and create alternatives; new routes, new performances, and new ways of holding space.

“Second wave” suggests arriving after something has already begun. These artists are not working from a blank slate. They enter a world shaped by earlier traditions, systems, and expectations. Their work asks what it means to inherit those structures, especially when they have not served everyone equally.

The works do this through a wide range of materials and gestures. Silver gelatin photographs and projected video are obscured, glitched, reflected, and filtered through water and light. Picket signs become bodies. Garments become structures. Debris becomes a foundation. Sculptural elements stretch across the space, creating lines of connection, tension, and interruption. Some works rise, hang, bind, or suspend; others create openings that suggest movement between past, present, and future.

The exhibition asks viewers to move through the space with attention. Some works are loud, direct, and forceful. Others are quieter but no less intense. Sound, reflection, movement, and scale shape how viewers look, pause, and respond. The works invite us to notice our own position in relation to what we see.

These works mark the end of two years of intensive research, experimentation, and art making. They do not present easy conclusions. They hold open questions about history, identity, performance, access, and repair. Together, they imagine other ways of moving through the world, other openings, other futures, another way through.

Jonathan Calm
Curator

On View: May 12-June 4, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 14, 5-7pm
Curated by Jonathan Calm
Stanford Art Gallery, 419 Lasuen Mall
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 12-5pm
Free & open to the public

Final Viewing: Sunday, June 14, 10am-12pm, 2:30-4pm

VISITOR INFORMATION: Stanford Art Gallery is located at 419 Lasuen Mall, off Palm Drive. The gallery is open Monday–Friday, 12–5pm, and will be closed Memorial Day (May 25). Visitor parking is available in designated areas and payment is managed through ParkMobile (free after 4pm, except by the Oval). Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and hop on the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle. This exhibition is open to Stanford affiliates and the general public*. Admission is free. 

*Children under 8 years old are not permitted in the exhibition due to the presence of loose or small components that may pose a choking hazard. Minors over the age of 8 must be accompanied by a responsible adult. To protect the artwork and ensure a safe experience for all visitors, touching of artworks is strictly prohibited.

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