AAAinA was thrilled to present a virtual conversation between artists Aya Rodriguez-Izumi and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork with moderation by curator Fang-Tze Hsu. Rodriguez-Izumi and Kiyomi Gork are current participants in the Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention (SB2025) and have each created new commissions through on-site interventions. Both artists explored their affiliations and relationships with the history of Okinawa and discussed their individual practices as well as recent projects. Hsu, as a member of the curatorial team for SB2025, spoke about the curatorial framework of the Biennale as well as the intersections between the artists’ practices. 

Bios:

Aya Rodriguez-Izumi is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work blends sculpture, installation, performance, community engagement and documentation to explore aspects of ritual retention, cross-cultural identity and histories that risk erasure. She was born in Okinawa, Japan, and grew up between that island and East Harlem, NY, where she currently holds a studio. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues such as El Museo del Barrio, MoCADA, the NUS Museum in Singapore, the International House of Japan in Tokyo, the Taipei Fine Art Museum, The Aldrich Museum, and The Children’s Museum of Manhattan among others. She was a recipient of the A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship in New York, a Jerome Foundation Fellowship at Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota, the JUSFC Creative Artist Fellowship, the Annual Artist fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park, the Artist Alliance Inc x District 1 in-school residency program in New York, and represented Okinawa and the United States in the 2021 Benizakura Art Annual in Hokkaido, the 2023 Romantic Route 3 Triennial in Taiwan, and the 2024-35 Yanbaru Art Festival in Okinawa. She earned a BFA in Fine Arts from Parsons the New School for Design and an MFA in Fine Arts from The School of Visuals Arts. Aya centers community building in her practice and work and brings this sensibility to her teaching in SVA’s MFA Fine Art Department as well as her work as a board member at the historic feminist artist run A.I.R. Gallery.

Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork (b. 1982, Long Beach, California) earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Stanford University. They have presented solo exhibitions at the Harvard Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge; Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; François Ghebaly, New York; Empty Gallery, Hong Kong; 356 Mission Rd, Los Angeles; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, among many others, and their recent group exhibitions include the Chicago Architecture Biennial; MOCA Tucson; Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A., Los Angeles; SculptureCenter, New York; SFMoMA, San Francisco; the Berkeley Art Museum; and VAC Foundation, Moscow. Kiyomi Gork is the recipient of awards from the VIA Art Foundation and the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Their works can be found in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center; Hammer Museum; SFMoMA; K11 Foundation, Hong Kong; and Berkeley Museum of Art. Kiyomi Gork will be included in the 2025 Singapore Biennial.

Hsu Fang-Tze, a curator at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), works at the intersection of archival research, expanded cinema and sonic politics. Her practice bridges discursive exploration and artistic production, drawing on her experience as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and curator at the NUS Museum. Her work in curating, film programming, archiving, and publishing has developed through collaborations with institutions across East and Southeast Asia. Her contribution to the Singapore Biennale 2025: pure intention examines the memory politics of public spaces, exploring tensions between state-driven urban planning and grassroots placemaking to reveal local communities’ aspirations.

AAAinA’s general programming and operations are funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Vilcek Foundation, and other foundations and individuals.