2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition

Altar(栖)
Ceramic, Drift wood, Metal, Mixed media
80'' x 80'' x 80''
2026

Parasitim
Ceramic
16'' x 16'' x 14''
2025

Pixiu (貔貅)
Ceramic
2026

Rain-Demon Back Flow Incense Burner
Ceramic
2026

Diego Qi’s practice explores the relationship between vernacular belief systems, ritualized behavior, and emotional structures. Rather than approaching belief as an abstract religious idea, he understands it as a structure that operates through ritual gestures, material arrangements, and spatial organization. His work examines how belief is sustained through everyday practices and how these structures influence family relationships and emotional experience.

Within the context of cultural migration, ritual structures that once operated naturally within domestic life begin to reveal their internal mechanisms. By reorganizing ritual frameworks and spatial pathways, Qi’s installations guide viewers through movement, pause, and observation, creating a sense of order that remains incomplete while reflecting on how belief structures organize emotion, family relationships, and uncertainty within everyday life.

Diego Qi is a sculptor and installation artist from China currently based in New York. His practice explores the relationship between vernacular belief systems, ritualized behavior, and emotional structures, examining how belief is organized, sustained, and maintained through material arrangements and spatial systems. Working with ceramics, wood, metal frameworks, and installation, Qi transforms religious figures, animal spirits, and everyday ritual objects into contemporary structural environments. Within these works, hierarchy, circulation, and repetition are reorganized to create spaces that suggest ritual order while remaining open and unresolved. As viewers move through and around these installations, they encounter structures that both guide and unsettle perception. Situated within the context of migration and cultural transition, Qi’s work reflects on how ritual systems shift when removed from their original social environments. His installations investigate how belief structures are displaced, reassembled, and made visible, revealing how rituals can organize uncertainty and provide emotional reassurance within changing cultural contexts.