Tori Hong’s For the Time Beings is a participatory altar installation offering opportunities for private contemplation and collective manifestation. The work will be on view from January 9—30, with an opening reception on Friday, January 9 from 5:30 – 8:00 pm, presented in collaboration with Michael Rose’s Drinks with Artists and featuring beverages from Hi Bar Lo Bar.

In this body of work, Hmong—an Indigenous ethnic group from East and Southeast Asia—and Korean shamanic altar practices collide as Hong pays homage to the survival and resistance strategies of her family and related communities. Hong channels cycles of grief, reverence, and hope through distressed portraits of chosen ancestors. The drawings form the backdrop of a communal seating area; audio recorded during the artist’s making process softly permeates the space. Participants are invited to sit upon hand-treated floor cushions and write anonymous manifestations for a shared future. The collected petitions will be burned on the New Moon, Saturday, January 17, at The Steel Yard, directly across the street from OPEN. Ashes will then return to the installation; the cycle of manifestations begins anew. 

On this work and her wider studio practice, Hong offers, “I’m interested in time as both a subject and artistic medium; in exploring the nonlinear, social, and cultural qualities of time. Hand sewing, basket weaving, and incorporating ashes from manifestations into the portraits—it challenges Western notions of temporality. It is in these interstices that liberatory futures can be born.”

About Tori Hong

Within queer theory and praxis, Tori Hong pursues drawing, installation, social practice, and textiles while her artistic research focuses on agency and survivance from a diasporic Hmong and Korean perspective. Hong’s work relies on intuition to hold space for complex narratives and create hybridized healing pathways for herself, her ancestors, and future generations. Select awards include: RISD Graduate Commons Grant Fellowship (2025), AIGA Worldstudio DxD Scholarship (2024-2025), Everwood Artist Retreat (2024), and Springboard for the Arts Hinge Arts Residency (2021). Hong is based in Providence, RI, where she received her MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design (2025).

About The Steel Yard

The Steel Yard is a non-profit industrial art center and shared studio located in Providence, RI. They’re an arts maker space and non-traditional craft school offering courses & educational programs in blacksmithing, welding, jewelry, foundry, and ceramics. The Steel Yard’s public projects, artist residency, and job training programs have been at the forefront of Providence’s cultural revival since 2002.

About OPEN

OPEN is a place for things. This is our third exhibition. Learn more at openforever.org. Our thanks to The Steel Yard, Michael Rose, and Hi Bar Lo Bar for partnering on this exhibition.