From April 22 to May 17, 2026, the Putnam Museum and Science Center at Augustana College hosted an exhibition that I—along with three Augustana students—created in response to this question: “How could art offer us a dynamic space that enables a deeper reflection, both individually and collectively, on vocation and our journeys?” The exhibition was titled Alive: Journeys in the Making, and it marked the culmination of a research project I conducted with these student as co-researchers. This project was supported by a NetVUE Grant to Individuals for Vocational Exploration and grew out my participation in Augustana College’s ALIVE (Augustana Leaders in Vocational Exploration) program, which invites sophomore students into a collective vocational discernment process. The program has recently completed its fifth year, and I have had the pleasure of serving as one of the mentors for the past two years. As researchers, we set out to examine the program’s transformative impact on us and to invite a broader audience into the dialogue surrounding vocation.
As an artist and a sociologist, this exhibition has been a critical part of my own vocational journey. Academic disciplines like sociology can sometimes privilege certain methodologies over others and hesitate to evaluate creative processes as valid research. My past experiences long made me feel pressured to separate my identity as an artist from my identity as an academic. However, the discussions we had in the ALIVE program regarding our identities, external demands, our gifts, and our callings enabled me to confront the damage caused by the pressure of this separation. Despite the risk of being labeled as a sociologist who is not doing “real research,” I wanted to place creative processes and their inherent uncertainties at the center of my research. I could not have taken this step without the support and inspiration of the other ALIVE mentors and the students who accompanied me on this journey. This experience led me to rethink the relationship between being true to ourselves and honoring our relationships with others.
Behind this intellectual shift was also the call from NetVUE to understand vocation through the lens of interdependence. This call runs parallel with one of our fundamental goals in ALIVE, which is to balance the exploration of individual strengths, desires, and internal conflicts with a collective reflection on how we can give back to the community. However, our research revealed that shifting the vocational dialogue from “me” to “we” is not easy in practice. The illuminated, interactive installation that I created, Shoulder to Shoulder, was born precisely out of this process, offering a literal expression of our need for one another, or perhaps, of my belief in that need.
I asked students, staff, faculty members, alums, and retirees who make up the Augustana College community to donate t-shirts and shirts. I arranged these garments side by side. Inspired by Called Beyond Our Selves: Vocation and the Common Good, I placed the text “mutual dependency” in neon lights above the clothes. However, these lights remained off until enough people stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the installation, activating the motion sensors simultaneously. I wanted people to form a whole by standing together—just like the shirts—and to experience what creating collective change feels like. The metaphor of the lights turning on served as a profound reminder to myself, both as an individual and as a mentor, about the importance of interdependence.
The exhibition also featured student works and pieces that we produced collectively. Taken as a whole, it reflected our effort to approach vocational exploration not simply as an individual inquiry but as a collective process shaped through relationships, stories, and shared vulnerabilities. It also demonstrated how artistic practice can serve as an enriching mode of both academic research and vocational discernment. The reflections below offer my co-researchers’ own perspectives on what this process meant to them and how it shaped their understanding of themselves, their communities, and their unfolding vocational journeys.
Areeya: Multiplicity of Self (XXI)
For many years now, I had to choose between pursuing art as a career and studying medicine. These two aspects of who I am were mutually exclusive.
Before I reached the age of 13, I would paint abstract art all day long. All that mattered to me was the freedom abstract painting gave me, which was the ability to create layers of colorful paints and convey emotions without using words.
But it all changed after my grandmother developed cancer. Witnessing her treatment powerfully impacted me and led me to decide to study medicine. The next few years I was obsessed with getting high grades in my classes and building the profile of an ideal medical school candidate. I started to suppress my passion for art, telling myself that it was unrealistic to pursue two paths at once. I stopped believing in the power of my creativity.
Becoming a part of the ALIVE community made me rethink the idea that it is possible to separate these two main parts of my personality. I realized that many of my decisions had been motivated by external factors rather than by what truly mattered.
My piece, Multiplicity of Self (XXI), has special significance as it forced me to face all the inner fears that I had suppressed because I had been living according to the ideas of other people. When I was working on ALIVE, I often returned to painting while surrounded by piles of biology notes and incomplete assignments. Nevertheless, the more I worked on the piece, the less important it became to produce something great or perfect. Painting became a tool to reconnect with aspects of my personality. Returning to art made me realize that the problem was never my complexity, but the belief that I had to abandon parts of myself to become worthy of success.
Phat: Fragments of Consumption
My project, Fragments of Consumption, symbolized my journey from Vietnam to Augustana College. It consisted of wooden pieces because my name literally translates to “wood.” I wanted to use wood to show my character: resilient and steadfast. Life is complicated, and you always encounter problems, so I used the symbolism of a puzzle. You have to find a way to solve the puzzle, just like you find a way to solve your troubles in life.
In the puzzle, there were pictures of people from campus. Because I am a very shy and anxious person, I initially joined ALIVE and attended my first meeting just for fun. But then I started documenting my experience with these people, representing my process of connecting and creating meaningful, intentional relationships. The original wood color resembled the “before” process, while the red wooden part represented my inner thoughts and what I experienced through this journey. Thanks to the ALIVE program, I came to understand what I want. I want to help people, build a community where my family is happy, and study myself to better understand my journey.
Selina: Research Process as Creation
I didn’t make art for this exhibition; at least not in the way you see on these walls. But I was part of the research for it, and in a way, this process became its own kind of creation. Not something you can hang up, but something you carry with you. When I started this project, I was thinking a lot about me: my path, my future, my place in all of this. But for me, “me” has never just been me. As the eldest daughter, I’ve always carried a sense of responsibility: showing up, taking care, being someone my family can depend on. So my journey has never been just individual. It’s always been connected to others.
This project didn’t give me clear answers about my vocational journey, but it did give me better questions: What does it mean to belong? How do I balance who I am with who others need me to be? And how do I grow without leaving parts of myself or my community behind?
There were moments when I felt unsure—not fully an artist, not fully certain of my role. But maybe that’s the point. Because vocation, at least for me, isn’t just about finding a path. It’s about learning how to carry both responsibility and possibility.
It’s moving from “me” to “we.”
Çağlar Çetin-Ayşe is a Turkish-born, U.S.-based sociologist and award-winning filmmaker. He is a visiting assistant professor of sociology at Augustana College. His research examines gender, race and ethnicity, and social inequality. His debut feature film, Here It’s a Bed of Roses, received international festival recognition, and his scholarship has been published in leading journals, including Ethnic and Racial Studies, Men and Masculinities, and Identities. He is the recipient of a 2026 NetVUE Grant for Individuals for Vocational Exploration.
Areeya Tandukar, Phat Lam, and Selina Yawson are students at Augustana College who collaborated with Çağlar on this project and this post.