NextGen 2025

ICA San Diego / Central
1439 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101

June 21, 2025 - Feb. 1, 2026

Related works:
Deep Drew
On Exactitude in Science

Listen to my interview with ICA curator Jordan Karney Chaim

ICA San Diego’s annual NextGen exhibition presents the work of seven graduating artists from regional art programs. Selected by a jury of art professionals, this year’s artists work across media—from photography and video to sculpture and installation. NextGen celebrate emerging artistic voices and highlights the innovative work being done across the San Diego region.

The 2025 iteration of NextGen is distinguished by its critical spirit. Some of the artists included, such as Nanzi Muro, take direct aim at systemic injustices, calling into question current power structures, including color in graduate school. While Nykelle DeVivo’s video works propose a path for liberation based in Black anarchist traditions, Emily Greenberg and Maddie Butler both interrogate technology as a powerful mediating force, considering the effects of device-obsession, social media, and AI on truth, reality, identity and relationships. Coralys Carter, Adele Gaburo, and Maya Rosado take up the politics of womanhood. Carter moves fluidly through time, connecting memory and identity through the body and its sculptural translation, while Gaburo’s visceral confrontation with body dysmorphia creates space for honest discussion. Through her photographs, Rosado preserves knowledge of Indigenous womb work, celebrating ancestral practice while proposing expanded, inclusive conceptions of women’s healthcare.

Text: Jordan Karney Chaim

Photos: Philipp Scholz Ritterman

Jurors: Talia Heiman, REDCAT; Kibum Kim, Commonwealth and Council; Christie Mitchell, Athenaeum Music & Arts Library; Karla Nino de Rivera, Museo Anahuacalli