-013 Sofia Thiệu D’Amico
If there is one thing that you can change in a previous project of yours, what would it be?
Note from the author:
I originally submitted the un-bolded text over email to Open Kitchen on August 6th, 2025 at 2:08pm. I let the first thing that came to mind be the answer, and it came out quickly and instinctually. Then, when talking about it over a Korean cold-noodle meal with artist Zoe Schwartz, another contributor to Open Kitchen, in the curator’s usual manner of overthinking I started to think about why this was my first reaction to the prompt and what was behind it. With the desire to go a little further inward, and Phil’s generous encouragement, I later added the bolded text.
Notes from Phil Cai, Open Kitchen:
The author submitted her second response on September 30th, 2025 at 5:39pm. Even though the later response (in the form of bolded and italicized texts below) is structually an addition to the initial answer, a system of recursive regret is performed, or in the author’s language “the curator’s over-thinking.”
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In thinking about “would-have” or “should-have,” this is definitely not installation related, but the first thing that comes to my mind is that I often wish that I cultivated more personal and casual time for just hanging out and having fun with the artists I’ve worked with. Leading up to an opening, often installation periods are so rushed and tiring that by the end of the day we all are stressed and just want to go home. So much conversation is focused purely on work. And to be completely honest, I’ve also occasionally felt held back from hanging out with some artists because I feel like there is an age or experience gap, or professional boundaries. I end up thinking, “They don’t want to hang out with me,” when really I find out later that they did, and I should have just asked! What was I so self-conscious of? Is this actually a conversation for my therapist? Probably.
In this field we’re often trying to find a balance between the desire for connection and the need for rest. On the one hand, perhaps if we were just better supported by resources and services—ie. the kind of ease that comes with bountiful time, energy, funding—embracing connectivity could also be much easier. Perhaps it’s our own industry’s precarity that can keep us in a guarded state.
I also think I tend to guard my social battery and alone time a little too fiercely in these situations, when in actuality, it’s after meaningful shared time that I end up feeling the most energized and uplifted. I often forget this truth. I wish I would have taken more initiative to hang out, invited more chances for each other’s presence, taken artists out to eat, got the post-install drink together, and just felt more comfortable spending casual non-working time together. Not doing so potentially creates excessive seriousness and stress, which is always ironic in that most of what we do as cultural workers is about resurgence.
If I’m to psychoanalyze myself further, I’m also an Aries and I spend a lot of time thinking about love and desire. I think frequently about bell hook’s instruction to live by a “love ethic” as a political tactic and antidote to violence. I believe this is written into the way I interact with space and with others. Basically every single year, one of my major New Year's resolutions is always some recapitulation of “be a better, more present friend to others.” I’m also extremely close with my family and they’ve instilled in me a certain cultural emphasis on relationality and thinking in the collective. In Vietnamese, there is a word called “nhậu,” which is the concept and activity of snacking and drinking with friends or family, usually over beer or cold tea and street food. Sharing good food, good drink, and good company, with no specific agenda beyond them, is pretty much a daily occurrence. It is also in some ways connected to agency and joy, organizing, orality and transmission, and the politics of pleasure. I feel that people around me are constantly looking to create new social arrangements for themselves that feel more comfortable and equitable. It’s simple, but I think nhậu is a good model in these times.
I also feel the curatorial process is embedded in intellectual and emotional intimacy, yet our discipline is also so object-oriented. I think we’re constantly trying to balance this with the centering of the person, as opposed to the thing. Added to this is the psychic work that a lot of us do, in considering historical oppression and systemic social inequity in cultural spaces while longing for a better world. Saidiya Hartman says, “Caring for ourselves and others is the way we destroy this world and create another. We help each other inhabit what is an otherwise uninhabitable and brutal social context.” 1 In the face of a difficult world system, all that we do have is our communities. I feel I am constantly looking for ways to build a more intimate relationship with the world, a bit of a reenchantment with our surroundings and each other, but often I am fumbling and getting flustered in the act of outreach.
In many projects, I wish I would have cultivated greater shared joy and play. The sociality, connectivity, relationship-building, and sense of fun are amazing aspects of the work we do, that I wish I had encouraged and leaned into more.
In the future, I’d like to surrender myself more into that edgeless, warm pool of togetherness. It could be wonderful, life-giving even.
About Sofia Thiệu D’Amico:
Sofia Thiệu D’Amico is an independent curator and researcher based in New York, currently serving as co-director of the Brooklyn-based artist-run space Transmitter. She previously worked as assistant curator of Canal Projects, and has held arts administrative roles at organizations such as the Vera List Center for Arts and Politics, the Isamu Noguchi Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. Sofia holds an MA from Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies, and her thesis research will be featured in the upcoming volume “Borders of Art: Migration, Mobility and Artistic Practice” (American University of Cairo Press, 2026). She has been a visiting critic at various residencies around New York City such as NARS Foundation, ISCP, Brooklyn Navy Yard Studios, among others.
1. Hartman, Saidiya. "On working with archives." Interview by Thora Siemsen. The Creative Independent, February 3, 2021, https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/saidiya-hartman-on-working-with-archives/
All images courtesy of Sofia D’Amico