Join us on the evening of Saturday, October 11 for the opening performance of Differentiation, the 3rd Synesthesia Show. Synesthesia Spectrum is an annual collaborative event presented by the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), two of Baltimore’s leading institutions in music and visual arts. This year’s Synesthesia Show explores the theme of differentiation – how artistic identity is shaped, fractured, or redefined through displacement, hybridity, and personal resistance. The works trace the nuances of being “othered” and the power of artistic self-determination.

Featuring Asian contemporary artists working across sound, performance, installation, and media, this edition invites audiences to experience a layered conversation around visibility, transformation, and creative divergence.

Visual Artists: DooRee Kang (MFA ‘25), Winter Hart (MFA ‘26), Lucia Shuyu Li (MFA ‘25), Michelle Li (BFA ‘25), Wonchul Ryu 류원철(BFA ‘25), YooRaRa (MFA ‘26), Aura Wang (MFA ‘25)

Composers: Yoonjung Lee (DMA ‘27), Yanqi Chen (MM ‘21), Yenhsing Chen (DMA ‘28), Zhishu Chang  (DMA ‘28), YoungJun Lee (DMA ‘27), Lulu Li (MM ‘26), Zhitao Lin (DMA ‘27)

Until the mid-twentieth century, the dress of the Palestinian people was descriptive of identity; first by societal segment (city dweller, villager or nomad), and then by the region in which the wearer came. Within each regional style, finer distinctions in women’s dress (thobe) were expressed that shared the maker’s life and the natural world around her. Palestinian women recorded their identity in their thobe with embroidery (tatreez) through a shared illustrative language of embroidered patterns, stitching techniques and thread colors.

After al-Nakba and throughout the 1960s, the thobe transformed into a reflection of national identity. It no longer signified a woman’s village, tribe, or town, her marital status, or her familial lineage, but instead bore the material impact of colonialism, occupation, war, and exile. This lecture will focus on the six dresses presented in Tatreez Inheritance, examining their material characteristics, their paths to the United States, and the ways in which one can employ the art of “close looking”—a skill Wafa learned from her mother at a young age—to uncover evidence of a woman’s personality, vocation, life, and sense of pride.

Online, Zoom link will be emailed 24 hours prior
Sliding Scale from $10