The Student Visitors: Northeastern Students Present Performance & Media Exhibition in Harvard Square

Led by artist and professor Kledia Spiro, the exhibition explores identity and
public space through immersive works and live performance.

Exhibition Dates: April 13–20, 2025
Location: Behind VA Shadows Gallery, Harvard Square
Opening Reception + Outdoor Performances: April 16, 6–8pm

Behind VA Shadows Gallery will host The Student Visitors, an immersive, site-specific performance and media exhibition by students in Topics in Media Arts: Performance and Media, an advanced studio course created and taught by artist and professor Kledia Spiro at Northeastern University.

In a rare opportunity, students created original work not only at Behind VA Shadows but also within the historic St. Botolph Club—one of Boston’s most exclusive venues— thanks to Spiro’s appointment as a St. Botolph Fellow and exhibiting artist in the club’s Fanfare Biennial. The exhibition title, The Student Visitors, reflects the students’ brief but impactful presence in these iconic Boston spaces, and nods to Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors, a performance-based video work central to the course’s inquiry into collectivity, gesture, and intimacy.

Working in groups, students developed installations and printed catalogues around four thematic frameworks, combining performance, video, and immersive media:

• Performing Femininity
Mimi Fallon, Isabella Pan, Kaitlyn Sarnoff, Maya Zukowski

• Conformity vs. Nonconformity
Carly Bates, Qianwen Lian, Alexandra Peterson, Aneesa Williams Santiago

• Love, Sharpness, and Death
IIan El Ghormli, Valerie O’Neill, Irene Ren, Jieyu Zhou

• Dissonance & Harmony
Dominic Bruce-Moore, Andrew Mayer, Charlotte Pidgeon, Zihan Zhao

The public is invited to the opening reception and outdoor performance on April 16, 6–8pm. With street closure approval from the City of Cambridge, the site will be transformed into an open-air performance space, blurring the line between gallery and public art.

The public is invited to the opening reception on April 16, from 6–8pm. The City of
Cambridge has granted permission to close off the street in front of the gallery for a live outdoor performance, transforming the site into an open-air stage.
The Student Visitors is a rare opportunity to witness emerging artists engaging critically and creatively with the city itself.

About the Curator: Kledia Spiro

Kledia Spiro is an artist, professor, and performer whose work bridges performance, video, and social practice. Her interdisciplinary practice explores themes of cultural identity, migration, and collective memory—often incorporating Olympic weightlifting as metaphor and medium.

She has exhibited at venues including Times Square, the Queens Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Spiro is a St. Botolph Club Fellow, currently exhibiting in the Fanfare Biennial, and teaches at Northeastern University, where she created the course Topics in Media Arts: Performance and Media.

Photo Captions and Credits
1. Group portrait of student artists at the St. Botolph Club. Photo by Kledia Spiro.
2. Poster design for The Student Visitors. Design by Kledia Spiro.
3. Group portrait of student artists at the St. Botolph Club. Photo by Kledia Spiro.
4. Live student performance in historic venue. Photo by Kledia Spiro.
5. Performance documentation from rehearsal. Photo by Kledia Spiro.
6. Students performing at the St. Botolph Club. Photo by Kledia Spiro.