Alexander D. Iglesias curated a group exhibition that lasted from April 4th to May 23rd, 2026. The group exhibition featured the works of Alexander D. Iglesias, Helena Ernst, and Jonah Saffran-Johnson.

“East of Our Youth, West of Our Future is an experimental group exhibition featuring the work of three young emerging artists; Alexander Iglesias, Helena Ernst, and Jonah Saffran-Johnson.

Curated by Alexander Iglesias, the exhibition illustrates a fictional short story about youth utilizing selected works from each of the Artist’s debut projects.

Iglesias’ project Driftwood explores the façade of the alternative scene and its connected social circles – graffiti artists, underground music, illegal raves, et cetera – and the underlying cost of the lifestyle. With the new perspective age brings, Iglesias’ tries to understand their own impulse for involving themselves in this community when they were a child while photographically navigating their own life now as an adult, creating opportunity for self-definition and understanding.

Ernst’s work stems from two projects exploring the loss of her father to his alcoholism in her early childhood. Love Land is a photographic series set in American suburbia, depicting fragments of memories and grief shared with her mother and sister. Looking for a way back into the dreamworld she escaped to as a child, Ernst revisited poignant places around her hometown and the house she grew up in, searching for these fragments. Along with images from this series is a set of stills from her documentary, Everything is Different Now. In the documentary, Ernst reconstructs the memories of her father, to experience a life with him she never had, and attempt to understand who he was as a man and musician before he succumbed to his addiction.

Saffran-Johnson’s project The First Five Changes is a coming-of-age narrative shaped by his estrangement and reconnection with his father, detailing the experience of reconciliation while navigating the unreliability of our own memory.

The works from these three artists explore different facets of adolescence as they seek to understand youth now and in turn make sense of their futures. Moments of both intimacy and anonymity trace the threads of nostalgia that weave through the uncertainty of understanding oneself and the world around us all.

Through their different ways of seeing, the confusing reality of being a young person in the modern world becomes apparent. The exhibition becomes a space where tender moments of beauty - a friend cutting your hair, laying with a lover, or a moment of eye contact on the dance floor - are forced to exist within a world that is often chaotic and indifferent. As the three stories weave together into an interconnected one, we find a moment of commonality and connection.”

“I woke up to the sun streaming through my blinds. The light hit me in the eyes. The unfocused scene outside my window slowly turned into reality. My head is pounding. I only get out of bed cause I told you I would.

Climbing fences is good for you, I think. I focus fully on my left hand gripping the wire. Then my right. The pinch of the chain link fence on my skin hurts in a good way. Left leg goes over the top bar. Then my right. The drop to the ground makes my skull rattle, but the throb in my brain feels warm. Now we just have to walk through the woods for a bit and we’re there.

The boxcars have been sitting in the yard since last night. They’re somehow completely clean. I wrote our names over and over again like I always do. The cans rattled in my bag the whole walk back home. Someone, somewhere will see our name. I have paint on my fingers. I tried to smear it on your face but it already dried. We get to your place.

I’m too high and my hair is bothering me. You have clippers. I always liked the way the wind feels on a buzzcut. I’m just stuck in my head again. Just a moment of silence and I go so far away. Or maybe deep inside. I don’t want to deal with it, so I just keep moving. There’s a show tonight. Some guy is playing. It’ll be ok maybe. I’m trying not to drink, but I’m not trying that hard. I borrow a cigarette for the millionth time. We take your car.

The show is better than I thought. The music is loud, I can’t hear myself think. Bodies blur into one another. It is almost perfect for a moment. You next to me. The band is hosting an afters. “Let’s go” you say. “Ok.” You want to take me somewhere first though.

We can see everything from here. I can smell the trees. I’m cold. The fog is heavy. I’m stuck in my head, but I think you are too. Maybe it’s better together. But I could never really talk to you about it.

You are too tired to drive, but not too tired to go drink some more at the afters. You’ll be alright once we get there. I’m not sober enough for this. Unlucky. I crash the car into a telephone pole. I don’t know where I was, where I am, or where I am going, but I know it was probably too fast.”