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Here's Sisi's perspective on the experience:

Last semester, I took a performance class… accidentally. Last week, I performed at Yoko Ono’s exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago… intentionally and proudly.

This is a story I’ve been telling everyone about my time at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Through the Lake Forest College In The Loop program, I had the opportunity to take classes at SAIC for two semesters. I had been focusing on photography and screenwriting when I came across a course titled “Lens-Based Performance.” I thought, This is it. This is my class.

I was certain about my path as a photographer and filmmaker. However, with my love for theater, I’ve been photographing Hixon productions at Lake Forest College since my freshman year and volunteering at theater festivals back home in Bangkok. I always saw myself as the digital media person in the room, the one documenting the performance, not becoming it. So I enrolled in the class, thinking I would become a better performance photographer.

It turns out, it was mostly a performance class.

In our first session, Professor Kat Bawden asked us to create a gesture based on a chosen word. I picked “Body.” For three minutes, I filmed myself hugging my own body. That video was later projected on a screen bigger than my house. I struggled deeply, convinced I wasn’t a performer.

Three weeks later, after studying artists like Ana Mendieta, Wafaa Bilal (whom I met), Carolee Schneemann, Adrian Piper, and Yoko Ono, something shifted. I fell in love with performance art: the intention, the vulnerability, the meaning behind the simplest gestures.

Then Kat invited our class to be part of a Yoko Ono performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA).

It was an honor to stand in that space alongside artists I deeply respect. I’m grateful this “accident” expanded my understanding of what I can be as an artist.