School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Building on two years of successful collaboration, ART on THE MART’s Spring 2026 season spotlights emerging talent from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the internationally recognized Chicago institution and one of the world’s leading schools of art and design.

Synthesis is a newly commissioned program created by SAIC graduate and undergraduate students, who have paired up to produce 14 original works. Organized around the theme of “Synthesis,” the project challenges students to consider the monumental scale and architectural specificity of THE MART, exploring how visual projection and sound can converge seamlessly within its façade and surrounding urban environment. Each student pair—one leading the visual component and the other the audio composition—brings distinct expertise in materials, technologies, and collaborative methodologies. Together, they develop integrated works that treat light and sound not as parallel elements, but as interdependent systems shaped by the site.

Synthesis was developed under the guidance of Jan Tichy, an ART on THE MART alumnus whose commission Artes in Horto – Seven Gardens for Chicago premiered during the platform’s inaugural year in 2018, and Austen Brown, a Chicago-based sound artist and educator. Both Tichy and Brown are faculty members in SAIC’s Department of Art & Technology/Sound Practices.