Reframing the Human: Cosmology, Myth, and Speculative Lineage
Panel Discussion at The Shed
August 9, 2025
Special thanks to
The Shed
AYDO
Panelists
Artist
2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow
2023-2025 President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities
Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya is a Brooklyn-based transdisciplinary artist cultivating spheres of care and healing by weaving together textile, public art, fiber, and ritual. Raised by Indonesian and Thai immigrants in Atlanta, her work aims to amplify marginalized voices, channeling loss and disconnection into portals of renewal and repair. Collaboration is central to Phingbodhipakkiya’s practice, and she harnesses the power of community to create living monuments that tell defiant and evocative stories of the human experience.
Amanda’s work has been exhibited globally, with installations in the Brooklyn Museum, the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and recognized by the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Guardian. Her work is held in permanent collections at the Museum of the City of New York, the Goldwell Open Air Museum, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Chinese in America, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Artist Collective
AYDO was founded in 2020 by artists A Young Yu, and Nicholas Oh in New York. Both raised between Korea and the United States, the duo combine their expertise in performance, video, ceramic sculpture, and site-specific installation to form their collaborative practice. Brought together by a shared interest in Korean folklore and precolonial spiritual practices, AYDO re-imagines these themes through a diasporic lens to reflect the present Asian American reality.
AYDO has exhibited and performed at venues including Bronx Museum of the Arts, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Museum of Arts and Design, Christie’s, Creative Time, Hub-Robeson Gallery, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, ChaShaMa, Artist Alliance, AHL Foundation, Fashion Institute of Technology, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, and Apex Art, among others. AYDO was awarded artist residencies at Recess Art, Sculpture Space, Catwalk Institute, and Dongguk University in South Korea.
Artist
Adjunct Professor at RISD
Jia Sung is an artist and educator who was born in Minnesota, bred in Singapore, and now based in Brooklyn. Drawing inspiration from Chinese mythology and Buddhist iconography, Sung combines a diverse array of mediums with the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert common archetypes of femininity, queerness, and otherness.
Her paintings and artist books have been exhibited across North America, including the Knockdown Center, RISD Museum, Wave Hill, EFA Project Space, Lincoln Center, Yale University, and MOMA PS1. She has taught at organizations like the AC Institute, Abrons Arts Center, Children’s Museum of the Arts, and Museum of Chinese in America. Currently, she is an adjunct professor at RISD, where she received her BFA in 2015.
Artist
Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute
2025 Fellow at Socrates Sculpture Park
Natalia Nakazawa is a Queens-based artist and educator whose work spans painting, textiles and social practice. As someone of both Uruguayan and Japanese American descent, her work is deeply in touch with multi-generational cultural stories. Through community-driven projects, Nakazawa encourages critical engagement with personal histories to create meaningful objects that engage with important moments of cultural exchange.
Natalia’s work has recently been exhibited at Wave Hill, Arlington Arts Center, Transmitter Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Wassaic Project, Lafayette College Galleries, and The Old Stone House in Brooklyn. Natalia has been an artist in residence at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, MASS MoCA, SPACE on Ryder, Wassaic Project, Facebook AIR, Interlude Artist Residency, CAMPO Garzon, Triangle Arts Association, and Wave Hill Winter Workspace.
Artist
Sahana Ramakrishnan is a New York-based painter whose practice is rooted in our relationship with the non-human, whether that be animal kin, earth’s ecology, or the vastness of time. Born in Mumbai, India and raised in Singapore, her work fuses South Asian mythology with painting traditions passed down from her grandma, embedding her cultural heritage into the rich surfaces.
Sahana’s work has been exhibited internationally and nationally with Fridman Gallery, Jeffrey Deitch Projects, Rachel Uffner Gallery, the Rubin Museum, the NARS Foundation, and more. Her work is currently in the collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, The Brooklyn Museum, and the Kadist Foundation, among other private collections. Ramakrishnan’s paintings and exhibitions have been featured in publications such as The Brooklyn Rail, Artforum, Hyperallergic, Artnet News and more.
Artist
Member of Haven Arts Park
Born in Taishan, China, and raised in Sunset Park, New York, Ye Qin Zhu is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist known for his relief paintings. Drawing inspiration from the collusion of cosmologies, legacies, and cultures that can be found in the architecture of places of worship, Zhu’s work hopes to transmit knowledge through visual experiences, material objects, and spatial installations. Through deeply textured surfaces, and large-scale immersive public works, the artist seeks pathways towards personal, ancestral, and social healing.
Zhu is an internationally exhibited artist, with solo and group exhibitions at DIMIN Gallery, The Sugar Hill Museum, Galerie Marguo, Harper’s Gallery, among others. His public works include installations for the Yale School of Medicine, Kingsgate Project Space, Governors Island, and more. Zhu is a founding and leading member of Haven Arts Park, a recipient of the 2022-2023 Mellon Foundation Grant. Additionally, Zhu has been interviewed by publications such as the New York Times, Curator Guide, and Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
Moderator
Senior Curatorial and Public Programs Assistant at the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts
Danni Shen is a curator and writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She currently serves as the Senior Curatorial and Public Programs Assistant and Teaching Assistant at Harvard University’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, and has previously worked at Empty Gallery, The Kitchen, Residency Unlimited Inc, Wave Hill, and Cornell University’s Johnson Museum of Art. Her writing has been featured in BOMB, Art in America, Heichi, Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, and OnScreen Today.
Video recorded and edited by
Seon Hong Hur