2025-2026 AALANA & BIPOC Inclusion Fellowship Recipient:

Natia Ser

EDUCATION

BFA in Studio with Thesis in Visual and Critical Studies (Distinction), School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

“Drawing from my experience as a foreigner who has been living in the U.S. for 6 years, I explore signs of intimacy that exist in temporal itinerant living through photography, book arts and performance to investigate the ambivalence of familiarity and estrangement, longing and belonging.

My interest in water is informed by my superstitious Chinese mother who believes the water element poses a danger to my life as indicated by its absence in my Chinese horoscope chart—a notion I approach with compliance and transgression. Banned from outdoor ventures near Lake Michigan due to a Lunar New Year fortune-telling in 2022, I stayed indoors to reminisce past engagements with waterscapes, as well as turn to my own body to explore landscapes that resemble both pleasure and pain. Paired with these explorations is an attitude of play that transgresses Confucius notions of filial piety and Chinese societal expectations of the female body.” - Natia Ser