The Mail Room – Kelsey Miu
The Mail Room
Kelsey Miu
Kelsey Miu is a senior at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, with an expected graduation in May 2025. Originally from Queens, New York City, she grew up immersed in a rich tapestry of cultures, languages, and creative influences.
A formative influence in her artistic journey was Ukrainian artist Liana Shemper, the mother of a childhood friend and Miu’s first art teacher. Under Shemper’s guidance, Kelsey began learning watercolor, gouache, and charcoal drawing during after-school lessons in elementary school. She also participated in youth programs at the Queens Museum, where she engaged in hands-on learning in art technique, art history, and exhibition design. These formative experiences introduced her to the power of visual storytelling and the role of art in community engagement and advocacy.
Kelsey is a recipient of the Posse Foundation’s full-tuition leadership scholarship, awarded to exceptional students who demonstrate academic excellence and leadership potential. At Vanderbilt, she has explored a wide range of artistic mediums—including oil painting, charcoal, sculpture, pottery, and printmaking—and has exhibited her work throughout the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Building. Her work was also featured in the official Vanderbilt calendar as a gift to the university chancellor.
Kelsey’s upcoming exhibitions include Where’s All the Time Go, the 2025 Senior Show and Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Thesis Exhibition (April 11, 2025); Little Things, a printmaking exhibition at Bongo Java (April 19, 2025); and the API Middle Tennessee Pacific Family Art Exhibition at Fido Cafe (April 30, 2025), all located in Nashville, Tennessee.
About the installation:
In my work, I explore themes of home, memory, time, and the human experience of everyday life. Through a combination of 2D and 3D mediums, visual elements, and text, I experiment with installations and collages to bring these themes to life—often using bright colors and layering techniques. This semester, I worked with a wide range of materials, particularly recycled ones like cardboard and construction paper, as well as “arts-and-crafts” methods involving cutting, string, hot glue, tape, and found objects. These materials evoke a sense of nostalgia and child-like creativity, embracing impermanence and playfulness in the process.
In this installation, both the physical sculptures and the process of making them—cutting, layering, assembling—mirror the layered, nonlinear nature of memory itself. The integration of
text alongside visual elements allows me to explore how we piece together fragments of
emotion, image, and language when trying to recall the past. By combining 2D, 3D, and written components, I aim to recreate the feeling of remembering: not as a singular image, but as a tactile, multifaceted experience. I often incorporate poetry or narrative elements into my visual work to offer new perspectives on ordinary experiences. Through the interplay of text and image, I aim to evoke emotional responses tied to memory, encourage reflection on the past, and invite viewers to appreciate—or even question— the small details that shape daily life. I constantly push myself to explore new materials and techniques, blending 2D and 3D forms and challenging the
boundaries between visual and written language.
The Installation:
