2025 Shared Dialogue, Shared Space Finale Indoor Exhibition
Korea Art Forum announces the 2025 Shared Dialogue, Shared Space (SDSS) Finale Indoor Exhibition in Chinatown, NY.
December 12, 2025 — February 21, 2026
Storefront for Ideas
127 Walker Street, New York, NY 10013
Ali Motamedi
Cecilia Lim
Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana
Ricardo Miranda Zuniga
Moses Ros
New York, November 24, 2025 — Korea Art Forum (KAF) invites you to the culminating indoor exhibition of the 2025 Shared Dialogue, Shared Space (SDSS) program. SDSS is an ongoing series of outdoor participatory art events held at accessible community hubs in immigrant neighborhoods around New York City. SDSS offers residents and visitors the unique opportunity to engage directly with artists and work with them to develop projects that address issues of language, identity, migration, conflict, and cultural production – key issues that define the experience of New Yorkers. These works culminate in an indoor exhibition and public art installations across New York City.
Following the unveiling of their public art installations, artists Ali Motamedi, Cecilia Lim, Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, and Moses Ros share their work as part of Shared Dialogue, Shared Space.
Guest curators Jennifer McGregor, the former Director of Arts and Senior Curator at Wave Hill, and Martin Lucas, arts educator and Emeritus Professor in the Integrated Media Arts MFA Program at Hunter College, co-curate the 2025 iteration. They bring fresh perspectives to this dynamic and continuously evolving project.
The reception for the exhibition will take place on Saturday, December 12th, from 6 PM to 9 PM at Storefront for Ideas, in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The exhibition will feature work from the artists’ work with Shared Dialogue, Shared Space for the course of indoor exhibition will take place The 5 artists will unveil their public art in parks very close to, if not the same as, the neighborhood they live in.
Immigrant Social Services (ISS) strives to co-create an environment where underserved immigrants and children of immigrants in Chinatown/Lower East Side can thrive and shape their futures. Through our programs and services, we nurture and empower our community’s children, youth, young adults, families, and older adults to restore their agency, while working to transform systems and cultivate opportunities that enable them to flourish.
Storefront for Ideas is a space for inquiry, curiosity, and creativity. It is a space to explore community issues that matter and to co-reimagine the possibilities for Chinatown, now and into the future.
Ali Motamedi—an author, artist, and educator who explores themes of language, immigration, and identity—will develop a participatory public art project that utilizes the expressive potential of unreadable or unfamiliar language as a medium for cross-cultural dialogue, community engagement, and collective creation through interactive installations and workshops.
Cecilia Lim will share a community-based art practice inspired by traditional sewing circles and her grandmother’s legacy. During the SDSS events, Lim will initiate dialogues with local residents to share stories while holding lap pillows embroidered with value statements on how to navigate conflict and prioritize relationships. The project includes storytelling, conflict resolution dialogues, and the production of zines documenting community interactions.
Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana, PhD, will invite participants to paint and create large-scale participatory murals that amplify the stories of migrants who entered the United States as minors, also known as ‘U.S. Childhood Arrivals.’ She will invite Dreamers and DACA beneficiaries to participate in her mural-making process during the events. The murals aim to foster a conversation connecting U.S.-Mexico border issues with those affecting immigrants on the East Coast. They address critical challenges, such as limited legal options, deportability, and the lived experiences of this generation of immigrants. They highlight that the border is not just a distant Southern reality, but also a present one here in NYC.
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga will expand a multimedia project that combines public workshops, a print publication, an informational website, street interviews, and a narrative-based video game to explore U.S. immigration history and propose new policies reflecting contemporary realities. During the SDSS events, the artist will play a Monopoly-style board game with participants. The board game parallels the history of U.S. immigration law with the U.S. gross domestic product to demonstrate how the national economy has grown through migrant labor. The game is presented on the street to inform participants, gather interviews, and workshop ideas for new immigration policies to be submitted to elected representatives and presented on social networks.
Accommodations
We welcome requests for individual accommodations. ASL and other disability services are available with at least two weeks' notice. For assistance, please contact us at info@kafny.org or (347) 840-1142.
About Shared Dialogue, Shared Space (SDSS)
This flagship initiative of the Korea Art Forum proudly commissions artists to create socially engaged, participatory art that culminates in public art installations in outdoor community hubs. The project focuses on serving (im)migrants, people with disabilities, and individuals facing economic hardship. Since its launch in 2020, SDSS has integrated art into daily city life, fostering dialogue between artists and the public while addressing various issues, such as anti-Asian sentiment, inequality, and climate justice. SDSS promotes collaboration, resilience, and social change, offering free, accessible, and immersive art events with live interpretation services. SDSS connects local communities to art, which enhances their overall quality of life and well-being.
About Korea Art Forum (KAF)
Founded in New York City in 2013, KAF is led by artists, scholars, and peacemakers committed to bridging the world through art. KAF supports artists' social engagement, enhancing people’s quality of life and well-being. We produce commissions, exhibitions, forums, publications, and art workshops to bring people together across the art world and beyond to share dialogues, build an interconnected world, and support inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA).
THANK YOU!
2025 Shared Dialogue, Shared Space (SDSS) is supported, in part, with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Additional funding is provided by the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF). Media sponsorship is provided by the Korean Community Media Broadcasting (KCMB). We especially thank our community partners, South Bronx Unite, the Minkwon Center, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, the NYC Department of Transportation, and NYC Council Members Vickie Paladino, Sandra Ung, and Julie Won for supporting KAF’s projects.
