Liminal Worlds
Curated by Kimi Kitada
Heehyun Choi, Daeun Lim, Lisa Maione, William Plummer
Sumire Skye Taniai, Heinrich Toh and Hope-Lian Vinson
July 12-August 23, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 12 from 3-5 PM CT
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, 506 Main Street (New Harmony, IN)
The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Southern Indiana is pleased to present Liminal Worlds, a group exhibition curated by Kimi Kitada featuring works by Heehyun Choi, Daeun Lim, Lisa Maione, William Plummer, Sumire Skye Taniai, Heinrich Toh, and Hope-Lian Vinson. Kimi Kitada is a Kansas City-based curator who currently serves as Gallery and Programs Manager at the Charlotte Street Foundation. The exhibition runs from July 12–August 23, 2025, with gallery hours from 10:00 AM–5:00 PM, Tuesday through Saturday.
Liminal Worlds considers the hybrid, multicultural identities of Asian American artists in the Midwest through the work of seven contemporary artists. The featured artists work across printmaking, sculpture, painting, fiber, and film. Drawing on the cultural theory of Homi Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, the artists’ practices reference a multivocal, fluid, and unfixed notion of identity. Some of the selected artists grew up in the United States, while others immigrated to the U.S. at various moments in their artistic careers. Scholar Erika Lee posits, “what does it mean to be Asian American in the Midwest?” In her essay in the Journal of Asian American Studies published in 2009, Lee frames the Midwest as a typical and authentic site of Asian America. This journal cites the long history of Asian American communities in the Midwest. St. Louis has had Chinese immigrants since the 1850’s, and Filipino Americans have lived in the Midwest since the early 1900’s.
Despite the enduring presence of AAPI communities in the Midwest, these histories and narratives are often invisible. This exhibition unravels the “in-between” spaces of cultural belonging and holds space for multiple identities at once. While all the exhibiting artists are based in Kansas City, each of the artists has a shifting relationship with their American identities and fusion of dual cultures. For artists Lisa Maione and William Plummer, the idea of cross-cultural heritage emerges in the abstracted forms of Maione’s Mokuhanga prints and Plummer’s Glass Translations series. Both Heinrich Toh and Sumire Skye Taniai use a layered approach to incorporating collage elements and iconographic references to Asian culture. From a different perspective, artists Hope-Lian Vinson and Daeun Lim embrace a minimalist aesthetic and a keen attention to texture and form. Heehyun Choi’s new film draws inspiration from a Korean poet Chong Yagyong, blending the poetic language with compelling black and white visual imagery.
Liminal Worlds presents a multitude of artistic forms and ways of making. Just as Asian American histories in the Midwest suggest a complex, evolving set of narratives, this selection of seven
contemporary artists scratches the surface of what it means to be Asian American in the Midwest today. The curator aims to present an open-ended, evocative selection of artworks to both uplift Asian American artistic perspectives and to provoke discussion on AAPI experiences in the American Midwest.
About the curator
Kimi Kitada is a curator based in Kansas City, MO. Currently, she is the Gallery and Programs Manager at Charlotte Street, where she oversees exhibitions and public programs such as The Guest Critic series and the Art Writing Intensive. Previously, she was a Curatorial Assistant at MOCA Los Angeles (2019-2020). From 2014 to 2018, she was Public Programs & Research Coordinator at Independent Curators International in New York. Her recent exhibitions include: Ways of Listening (2024); Potential Futures: Prototypes (2023); Handiwork: Art, Craft, and the Space Between (2022); With Liberty and Justice (2021) at Charlotte Street. She is co-curating a traveling exhibition States in Play: Midwestern Artist Run 1975 2025 with co-curators Brandon Alvendia and Jes Allie, which is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Kitada received a BA in Art History and Classics from Bucknell University and an MA in Museum Studies from NYU.
Image: William Plummer, Filtered Joss, 2019, glass beads and fireline, 4 inches by 6 inches
New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art at University of Southern Indiana promotes discourse about and access to contemporary art in the southern Indiana region. New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art is a proud outreach partner of the University of Southern Indiana
This exhibition is made possible in part Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana, and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.