"Wing Theater’s" Living Archive: Stories and Stages

AAAinA is thrilled to share a conversation between artist Jewyo Rhii and curator Katherine C. M. Adams on Friday, February 6th. The program will consider Rhii’s artistic formation in Seoul, South Korea and the impact of the city’s rapid industrialization on Rhii’s practice, as well as her recent work staging exhibitions internationally. Rhii and Adams will focus on Rhii’s new project Wing Theater, a new commission premiering at EMPAC in February 2026, which combines Rhii’s ‘storytelling machines’ into a stage-like, living archive.

Adams, curator of Wing Theater, will start the evening with a research-based look into Rhii’s practice and influence, placing the upcoming commission in the context of Rhii’s interests in artistic labor, narrative form, and fragile materiality. Rhii’s body of work blends structural interventions—often storage architectures—with delicate sculptural gestures focused on personal emotions and everyday life. Adams will also touch on developments in the Korean art scene in the 1990s and 2000s and Rhii’s connections to artists such as Yiso Bahc and Seoyoung Chung, plus emerging generations of artists in Seoul.

Bios:

Katherine C. M. Adams is a curator and writer based in New York. She is currently Associate Curator, Time-Based Visual Art, at EMPAC, where she works on commissions across visual arts and performance, curates public programs and develops discursive projects. Her curatorial projects at EMPAC have featured artists including Suneil Sanzgiri, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Jack Ferver, Marina Rosenfeld, Ligia Lewis, and many others. Adams’s articles and art criticism have been published in e-flux Journal, Afterimage, e-flux Notes, e-flux Criticism, Journal of Curatorial Studies, UCLA’s FLAT Journal, and BOMB Magazine, among others. She was the First Prize recipient of the 2022 International Awards for Art Criticism. Other recent curated exhibitions and programs include projects at the New Museum’s NEW INC, Berrie Center for Performing and Visual Arts, the Hessel Museum of Art, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and Miriam Gallery.

Jewyo Rhii (1971– ) combines variable, ephemeral, and mundane materials to shed light on and mobilize neglected subject/objects, narratives, and structures. Often based on her personal experience as an artist as well as a member of various intimate communities, Rhii attempts to draw in the peripheries of principal institutions and systems to propose inventive alternative methods for communal survival and caretaking.

Jewyo Rhii’s major solo exhibition toured in Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt, and Art Sonje Center, Seoul in 2013. Rhii's also held solo exhibitions at the Korean Cultural Centre UK, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and Queens Museum, New York. Her works were also exhibited in the 11th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul, Queens Museum, New York, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen, MMK, Frankfurt, Kunstmuseum, Basel, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Campbelltown Art Center, Campbelltown, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, REDCAT, Los Angeles, and many more.

EMPAC—The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is where the arts, sciences, and technology meet under one roof and breathe the same air. EMPAC’s world-class production environment enables artists to work across media and scale, supporting ambitious projects that are often impossible to realize elsewhere in the United States. Jewyo Rhii’s EMPAC commission Wing Theater is part of the Center’s forthcoming festival staging grounds, taking place at EMPAC from February 20-28, 2026. staging grounds continues EMPAC’s commitment to commissioning new artworks, fostering deep research, and connecting experimental practices with New York’s Capital Region and beyond.

Photo credit: Jewyo Rhii, Love Your Depot, 2019, Installation view at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul. Courtesy of the Artist, Photo by Team Depot.

Light refreshments will be provided.

The event is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, and other foundations and individuals.

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