The Soul Selects Their Own Society brings together work from Photographic Resource Center and Behind VA Shadows in an exchange exhibition that looks at interior life through photography, lens-based work and interdisciplinary practices. On view from June 19 to July 26, 2026, the show treats interiority not as a private refuge alone, but as something shaped by work, migration, care, solitude and the daily pressure of public life.
The exhibition gathers artists working in figurative, architectural, documentary, objective and abstract modes. Some images focus on domestic spaces, warmth and memory, showing how home can function as a site of recognition and comfort. Others move toward tension, presenting the split between what is felt inwardly and what must be managed in public. The result is a broad view of how people build and protect inner lives while moving through institutions, social expectations and collective routines.
Rather than treating interiority as a fixed psychological state, the exhibition presents it as something in motion. A room, a body, a street or a portrait can all carry signs of that process. What is visible on the surface often points to what is being held back, adjusted or performed. That approach gives the exhibition a practical edge: it asks how images reveal emotional life without reducing it to simple confession.
The project is co-curated by Yolanda He Yang, Founder and Lead Artist of Behind VA Shadows, and Shelby Feltoon, Curatorial Lead. Behind VA Shadows began in 2021 as an artists-run public art project founded by Visitor Assistants at the ICA Boston, with the goal of making space for the creative work of museum workers and widening access beyond institutional walls.
That background shapes the exhibition’s tone. The Soul Selects Their Own Society connects artistic practice with lived experience and communal care, offering a clear reminder that private feeling and public systems are never as separate as they seem.
Image: © Will Machado
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