Dining On the Stars
A Dialogue With Fate
March 22, 2025 - April 04, 2025
13 Grattan St, #402, Brooklyn, NY, 11206
A Space Gallery is pleased to present Dining on the Stars – A Dialogue with Fate, a group exhibition exploring the delicate balance between fate and free will. Using the metaphor of a grand dining table, this experience invites a fresh perspective on the interplay between destiny and choice in life’s journey.
Stars symbolize destiny and the future, their light traveling through time, tracing the universe’s path in human lives. Dining, in contrast, is a warm, intimate ritual that represents connection and sharing. While meals are part of daily life, the stars remain distant—mysterious and infinite. We invite artists to create a Feast of Fate, exploring the connection and tension between real-world choices and imagined destinies, ultimately depicting the fragile balance between fate and free will.
Jared FitzGerald’s Spring III merges traditional blue‐and‐white porcelain techniques with Western abstraction, exploring the interplay of cultural exchange and fate. The unpredictability of glaze flow and kiln metamorphosis reflects the balance between control and chance in the creative process. Xiaojin Zhu’s Growth Conditions explores the dynamic interplay between fate and free will. Through nature-inspired paintings, the artist personifies plants to illustrate how free will shapes personal growth. While external conditions play a role, it is the individual’s mindset and approach to adversity that ultimately guide transformation.
Amanda Zhiyao Li’s The Doll Chair examines the tension between transformation and imposed ideals, reflecting the way fate and external forces shape female identities. By subjecting a doll chair to physical reconstruction, the work mirrors society’s relentless attempts to "correct" perceived flaws, raising questions about agency, gender relationships, and the illusion of control. Lucy Lin unravels the complexities of power dynamics, revealing how we inhabit shifting roles—both shaping and being shaped by unseen forces. The roles we inhabit are never fixed. We are both the hand stretching into the void and the being caught within its grasp. Korissa Frooman, in turn, challenges the notion of stability by rendering a chair limp and pliable, reflecting on the inevitable decay of objects, identities, and traditions. Her work speaks to the fluid nature of fate—how time erodes once-fixed structures, leaving behind artifacts that bear the weight of transformation.
Zhou Jun’s Three Hats Cat Throwing Stars merges absurdity and myth in a surreal landscape where a multi-headed cat hurls stars across a fractured sky, blurring the lines between fate and free will. The golden threads connecting cosmic play and human uncertainty reflect the tension between action and consequence, questioning whether we shape destiny or merely surrender to its whims. Eleanor Yuhan Wei’s work explores the fragile interplay between fate and free will through the journey of a woman on the brink of despair. The sound of wind chimes and the quiet presence of stars suggest that guidance exists in the most unexpected moments, reflecting the exhibition’s meditation on celestial forces shaping human choices.
Brubey WanZhi Hu explores how memory and space are shaped by fleeting encounters, mirroring the delicate interplay between fate and personal history. Through painting as transcription, she distills overlooked traces of daily life into abstract compositions, suggesting that even mundane moments hold the weight of destiny. Seirim Yoon captures a fleeting moment at dusk, where time seems to pause, evoking nostalgia and the search for meaning in familiar yet distant surroundings. This suspended stillness mirrors the exhibition’s theme—where past and present blur, and fate reveals itself in the quiet unfolding of everyday life. “Lost in the flow of time, I travel back and forth from the past to the present trying to recognize these mixed feelings.”
Molly Shivers’s Takeout reflects the silent but powerful forces of fate within family relationships—how unspoken histories and expectations shape our roles at the table. The moonlit gathering captures the delicate balance between connection and estrangement, mirroring the exhibition’s exploration of destiny within intimate rituals. Qianying Zhu’s My Dining Table Series begins with the dining table—a symbol of warmth, connection, and daily ritual—and expands into a meditation on fate and choice. Each scene, whether it captures a gourmet meal or a humble bowl of instant noodles, echoes the exhibition’s theme by revealing how the simple act of sharing food mirrors the cosmic interplay between destiny and human agency. Zahra’a Nasralla, through the inscription of the poem For I Am a Stranger onto six dinner plates, intertwines language, identity, and the act of gathering. Their work speaks to the exhibition’s theme by questioning how fate and belonging intersect—whether shared rituals bring us closer together or reinforce our sense of displacement.
Installation View
