FATE WORK (1)

Chinatown Soup presents Fate work (1), a solo exhibition by Soup Studio resident Sumin Hwang, on view through March 9, 2025. Borrowing its title and methodology from Stefano Harney and Valentina Desideri’s framework of “fate work,” Hwang’s woven painting unfolds as a site of tension and trust—an interstitial space where autobiographical images, archival fragments, and historical texts fracture and reassemble in precarious, fateful communion. Please join us for an after hours opening reception on Thursday, February 27th from 6 - 8 pm.

Constructed over four months in residence, Fate work (1) is layered with print, image, text, and paint, creating a dense visual field where bodies, stories, and histories interlace in simultaneous resistance and support. The work rejects surveillance and legibility, instead embracing the vulnerability of entanglement. Accompanying the sculptural piece is the Fate work (1) Catalog, a document of gratitude citing the companions, writers, and artists who, directly or obliquely, shaped the original paintings recorded within its pages.

Expanding on this methodology, Fate works (2-26) builds upon the namesake piece, incorporating inkjet prints of the artist’s well-worn stencils and airbrushed motifs to generate a series of twenty-five improvisational fine art prints. These works continue the practice of layering, collaging, and honoring relational entanglements through form.

Sumin Hwang is a Brooklyn-based artist, arts worker, and researcher whose practice engages Korean anti-colonial resistance, refusal/nonperformance, monstrosity, personhood, and queer performance cultures. She has produced and shared work with the Brooklyn Museum, Lawndale Art Center, Chinatown Soup, School for Poetic Computation, C Magazine, FAR-NEAR, and Sleepy Cyborg Gallery. She traces her roots through San Diego, CA, Houston, TX, and the Korean Peninsula.