The Department of Digital Media and Design of the University of Connecticut is delighted to announce the 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition Remnants. The in-person exhibition is open from April 7th to May 10th, 2025, in the William Benton Museum of Art at 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, CT. The opening reception will take place on Thursday, April 23, from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM EDT. All events are free and open to the public. 

Exhibiting artists: 

• Maham Waqar, Gulab (2026) and Pir (2026), Narrative Short Films 
• Rein E. Dawson-Darst, The Furthest East: Roots and Requiem (2026), Narrative Games 
• Sabrina Claman, Christmas Breaking (2026), Animation 
• Hongchan Lee, Story of Emily (2026), Interactive Web 
• Yuna Kim, Echoes of Home (2026), Interactive Media 

Remnants is a collection of five digital archives that explore themes of memory, displacement, grief, and survival through digital storytelling. The exhibition brings together animation, film, game, and web-based experiences created by Digital Media and Design MFA candidates Maham Waqar, Evgeniia Rein, Sabrina Claman, Hongchan Lee, and Yuna Kim.

Through diverse practices and personal narratives, the works in Remnants explore themes of memory, displacement, digital harm, grief, and survival. Each project engages with lived experience through a distinct medium and lens. Rein is a game designer whose project, The Furthest East, delves into the culture and daily life of Koreans in the former Soviet Union under threat of deportation to the barren lands of Central Asia. Hongchan’s project, Story of Emily, is an interactive narrative that navigates the lived experiences of cyberbullying to foster empathy and digital violence prevention. Sabrina’s animated film, Christmas Breaking, translates a coming-of-age moment of her grandmother’s loss through imperfect, reimagined fragments of memory. Yuna’s Echoes of Home is an interactive experience that explores belonging, displacement, and memory through immersive digital environments and AI-guided interaction. Maham’s narrative short films, Gulab and Pir, expose violence as a product of deeply embedded social and spiritual hierarchies. They challenge complicity, asking who is protected, who is silenced, and at what cost.

The works invite audiences to move beyond passive viewing and into spaces of emotional and ethical engagement. These projects reflect on histories that are erased, identities shaped across cultures, invisible forms of violence, and the quiet, intimate realities of loss and resilience. At its core, Remnants is concerned with presence, with what it means to witness, to remember, and to feel. Together, these works form a collective exploration of how digital media can hold fragments of human experience and transform them into spaces for empathy, connection, and reflection.