February 4, 2026

Net-Works: Dark Matter and the Periphery

3:00 pm to 5:00 pm • Hayes Hall - Atrium
Gallery Talks: Preserving Black Spaces by Albert Chao and Samendy Brice at 3:30 PM

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The image shows a complex wooden framework made of interlocking beams and planks arranged in a precise, grid-like lattice.

Net-Works exhibition during assembly.

This installation explores the periphery in Buffalo—buildings, spaces, and communities that are part of the everyday and hold significance, history, and less-told narratives—as a space that holds power and demands study. The project explores and reveals physical, social, and historical narratives that are often hidden or overlooked in everyday spaces. These narratives are reconstituted as text, figure-ground massing models, and reconstructed perspectival drawings that are fragmented and interspersed around the periphery; the space between weaves and stitches the different projects together. This is a collective project experiment that has been co-designed with students.

Curatorial Statement

Networks is an installation that examines Buffalo as a site of cultural, spatial, and architectural significance. The project centers buildings, spaces, and communities that exist in the everyday, often overlooked, under-documented, or erased, yet hold deep histories and narratives, particularly those shaped by minority and marginalized communities across the city.

The exhibition positions the periphery not as a passive edge, but as an active and powerful condition that demands attention, recognition, and study. These peripheral spaces, residential streets, community institutions, forgotten infrastructure, and sites of collective memory, carry layers of social, physical, and historical narratives that are frequently absent from dominant architectural and urban discourses.

Through text, figure-ground massing models, and drawings, the project reveals fragments of hidden narratives. The works are intentionally dispersed and interwoven throughout the exhibition space, mirroring the fragmented and interconnected nature of the histories they represent. The space between installations functions as connective tissue, stitching together individual projects into a collective network that reflects the lived realities of Buffalo’s marginalized geographies.

Net-Works is a collaborative project, co-designed with students, that emphasizes collective authorship and shared inquiry. By engaging with the periphery as both subject and method, the exhibition amplifies minority voices and spatial practices that have shaped Buffalo beyond its celebrated centers. Ultimately, the project invites viewers to reconsider how value is constructed in the city and to recognize the periphery as a critical site of knowledge, resistance, and possibility.

Three individuals construct a large wooden grid structure indoors, using clamps and tools to secure beams.

Students and faculty collaborate to build the Net-works Exhibition, assembling a large wooden grid structure with clamps and tools.

Acknowledgments

Shop Team
Wade Georgi, Julia Hunt, Stephanie Cramer

Student Contributors
Nini Pandit, Natalie Zhao, Bryana Andreu, Jiayin Wu, Jasper Ma, Zach Izzo, Ryan Osborne, Cassidy Van Ness, Sarra Kourachi

Fall 2025 Media Class
Blake Abbott, Jannat Ahmed, Safa Alawdi, Sanaa Alawdi, Dylan Anello, Eric Austin, Alexander Balachick, Savannah Barham, Owen Bembenista, Ricardo Bravo, Pablo Chavez Cardona, Kelly Chen, Sean Chen, Alex Chudy, Jason Colindres, Johanson Cong, Bryce Coyle, Preti Das, Ian Denshaw, Collin Feissner, Bianca Fini, Brooke Friedman, Anny Urbano Garcia Ramirez, Zachary Gates, Benjamin Gerwitz, Michelangelo Gherardi, Tyler Goldstein, Adriana Gonzalez, Abbigayle Gorman, Salvatore Graziano, Lauren Hai, Trey Henry, Devin Hepworth, Bailie Hession, Andel Higgins, Safwan Hoq, Kalina Huang, Guerdina Jean-Claude, Daniel Jimenez, Dean Kelley, Connor Kempf, Ashton Kopaczewski, Sarra Kouraichi, Brett LaChance, Richard LaTour, Katrina Lee, Dylan Lo, Jacob Lopez, Christian Loux, Michael Mallia, James Manguso, Samantha Mendoza, Karolina Molter, Samadhi Moorer, Anna Morley, Julian Moronta, Erik Nieves, Jesse Norris, Eesha Pandit, Ashly Perez, Sai Kaung Seng Pha, Christina Polanco, Isabella Ponsa Garcia, Stephney Pryce, Ethan Przytula, Mya Quinn, Saeeda Rahman, Liam Ramsey, Brendan Ridgeway, Aminah Ryans, Rachel Santana, Lilly Saulpaugh, Kallie Seeley, Ruba Shaikh, Lah Sher, John Silvestri, Kyle Soifer, Aidan Stephan, Savannah Swinter, Sean Tait, Cinthya Tigre, Emily Wachtin, Thomas White, Jason Yevin, Ava Young, AJ Zambrana, Xiangbin Zhang, Lingwei Zhu