Berlin-based painter Elif Saydam makes their U.S. institutional solo debut at the MIT List Visual Arts Center with “List Projects 32.” The exhibition recontextualizes mechanisms of surveillance, vernacular architecture, and the homogenization of cities through a “materially inventive” approach to painting. “Saydam’s work conceives painting as a site for projection of fantasy: not only the fantasies of power and history that have historically preoccupied with medium, but the kinds of mundane romance and political longing that we encounter in daily life,” curatorial assistant Zach Ngin says of Saydam’s practice, which engages with traditions such as miniature paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and material explorations.