Jingyue Yang (Age 17) - based in MA

Every morning, millions of people wake up and immediately perform. They pick a profile photo, choose what to post, decide which version of themselves to show the world today. It happens so naturally that most of us don't even notice — but somewhere along the way, our identity started to feel less like something we live and more like something we manage. That feeling of being packaged, optimized, labeled is something I think a lot of young people carry quietly. We're the first generation...

I started this piece not really knowing what I was trying to make. I just knew I wanted to capture something I had been feeling but couldn't quite say out loud, that strange experience of looking fine on the outside while something completely different is happening inside. The sculpture ended up being a silver head rising out of a sea of waves, with a flat mirror balanced on top and a tiny flame-colored figure standing on it, arms wide open, mid-run. The waves are chaotic and the face is...

During my visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I noticed that many artworks no longer focus on beauty or storytelling in the traditional way. Instead, the artists used structures, materials, and repetition to reflect how people think, observe and respond to the world around them. From what I observed, and the images attached, these works experimented with different materials such as fabric, objects, and installation instead of paint and flat images. But beyond visual design, they...