AAAinA is thrilled to host an evening with artists Chang Yuchen and Rujuta Rao on Thursday, December 4th from 6:30-8pm. Chang and Rao will present on their intersecting interest in garments and clothing as well as their respective fashion projects, “Use Value” and “RUGA.” After their presentations, the artists will come together for a conversation that centers on the urge to design, don, and distribute art, and the failures that accompany these motivations. The conversation will be moderated by curator, Riley Yuen.

This program is organized in collaboration with The Here and There Collective’s curatorial residency program, Room for Error. As the inaugural awardee of this residency, Yuen has organized an exhibition titled Same Same but Different. Within this exhibition, the works of Alexander Ugay, Chang Yuchen, and Rachel Youn examine the space where repetition’s constancy meets failure’s inevitability. The exhibition asks: what happens when the space between intention and realization has been ruptured? Same Same but Different is on view from November 19th through December 19th at 54 Henry Street.

Bios:

Rujuta Rao is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, installation, book art, beverage, and participatory performance, alongside creating conceptual and functional garments under the imprint RUGA. Her work is research-driven and personal, using material investigation to explore migration, place, family history, and hospitality.

Rao received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Parsons School of Design, New York, and her BFA in Sculpture from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. She is a certified Japanese Sake Adviser through the Sake Service Institute International, Tokyo, and a sake sommelier candidate. Rao has participated in residencies and fellowships including the Bemis Center (Omaha, NE); SOMA Summer (MX); Center for Book Arts (NY); The Here & There Co. (NY), CCA Islands Travel Fellowship (Japan); and the Civita Institute Fellowship (Italy). Rao’s work has been exhibited at the State of Fashion Biennale 2024 (NL), The Kitchen (NY), the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 (NY), Printed Matter / St. Marks (NY), New York Live Arts (NY), Tufts University Art Galleries (MA), and Experimenter Gallery (IN).

Chang Yuchen works in an interdisciplinary manner – writing as weaving, drawing as translation, teaching as hospitality, commerce as social experiment (see Use Value) and publishing as a dandelion spreading its seeds. Yuchen is also an advocate for the art of her mother, Jin Mei.

Yuchen was a recipient of New York Public Library Picture Collection Artist Fellowship, Queens Art Fund New Work Grant, Poetry Project Curatorial Fellowship, Huayu Youth Award, Luminarts Fellowship, etc. She has shown/performed her work at Walker Art Center, Beijing Commune, By Art Matter, Carnegie Museum of Art, Amant, Artists Space, UCCA Dune, Para Site, Taikwun Contemporary. She was an artist in residence at Smack Mellon, Asymmetry Art Foundation, MASS MoCA, Museum of Art and Design, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. Yuchen has written for publications including Heichi Magazine, Press and Fold, Art in Print, and Randian.

Riley Yuen is a New York based curator who specializes in contemporary art with interests in Southeast Asia and Asian diasporic art. She recently completed her MA in Art History at the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art and a curatorial fellowship at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). Her most recent curatorial project on the politics of disgust is on view at MASS MoCA until December 2025. 

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.