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@initialresearch

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nonprofit supporting early-stage artistic inquiry through collective thinking, risk-taking experiments, and a deep love for the world.

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Medicine for our Martyrs: Philippine Herbal Practices for Collective Grief

A Memorial for the Victims of the Negros 19 and Fundraiser for the Defend Negros Campaign

During this 2 hour workshop, Kai Delgado Pfeifer (they / them) will guide us in making herbal medicinal syrup as a balm for collective grief. We will be crafting this syrup using Gumamela (hibiscus), Bayabas (guava), and Tubo (sugarcane)— three sacred plants of the Philippines which are connected to the cycles of creation and birth. As we craft our medicine, we will ground into meditation with each of these plants, allowing their medicines to move through our bodies and bring light to the grief we each carry. Following our meditation and crafting, we will collectively make a ritual offering of these medicines to the Earth as a way to transmute our struggles into unity.

This practice of medicine making and ritual is situated in the context of Negros 19, which happened 6 months ago on April 19, when a group of activists who were visiting a rural farming community in Toboso, Negros Occidental, was brutally attacked and slain by the Philippine military, resulting in 19 deaths. This attack, which the Armed Forces of the Philippines has claimed as an encounter, is in clear violation of International Humanitarian Law and War Crimes, as the civilian journalists, artists, organizers, and children killed were all non-combatant victims. As we offer to remembrance to our Martyrs, we will also learn about their struggle to support genuine agrarian reform in the Philippines.

The massacre took place on the island of Negros, which is home to the largest plantations of sugarcane in the Philippines. This sacred plant is native to the Philippines and carries potent medicinal properties if used correctly. However, sugar also carries a bloody legacy of exploitation that we seek to transform. By blending Sugarcane with two plants connecting to our origin myths & practices around birth, we will have an opportunity to begin healing the legacy of this plant.

Learn more and sign up at this link:
https://tinyurl.com/medicine4martyrs

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On September 22, @initialresearch was filled with friends, memories, and a shared sense of wonder for Rong Xin’s debut book launch, three years after the exhibition.

The whole night felt like time travel. We turned the space into a live broadcast studio stage with @mamahuhu_nyc (@artistyukihe @qianfan)'s performance, Old New Broadcast（旧闻联播）. Carrying forward the Flushing Monopoly game from the original exhibition, they tapped into the familiar cadence of Chinese broadcast news, narrating the lived textures and legends of Flushing.

Next, curators and longtime residents Lu Zhang @wetdreamsneverend and @herbtam shared personal, evocative stories behind the exhibition, before steering the conversation toward the book itself. The publication Rong Xin carries the core vision of the show into a new medium: treating the shopping mall as a vibrant site of entry, it invites artists to create without bounds and readers to roam at their own pace.

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Three years ago, we created “Flushing Polyphonous 法拉盛多重奏” for the exhibition “Home-O-Stasis: Life and Livelihoods in Flushing,” presented inside Rong Xin Plaza in Flushing and curated by Herb Tam (@herbtam ) and Lu Zhang (@wetdreamsneverend ).

On the occasion of the book launch for “Rong Xin,” published by te editions (@te.editions ) and hosted by initial research (@initialresearch ), we will present a new performance, “Old News Broadcast 旧闻联播.”

In “Flushing Polyphonous,” visitors and participants played a site-specific board game that wove together the hardships and pleasures of everyday life in Flushing. With “Old News Broadcast,” we continue to explore the stories and lived experiences of Flushing, sharing some of the neighborhood’s backstories, transformations, and vicissitudes over the years.

Sep. 22, 6–8 pm
41 Wooster St., 2nd Fl., New York, NY 10013

See you very soon!
@artistyukihe @qianfan

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HAPPY SEPTEMBER!!!!

♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎

honestly, it was a beautiful summer…

this group show just dropped so i have to post. I’m very excited to be in this big, beautiful group show that’s open forever this fall… (until November). TBD ON WHAT I WILL SHOW!!

ty @daemonlovers @f0rmercultmember @dayana_matasheva (who have been inspiring me so much lately!!!) && @shainatabak

Rn, I’m teaching online game stuff at SUNY Albany, and it has been great so far <33

(I simply go where the academia wind takes me~~~)

♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎

I’m still rly excited that this crazy inappropriate and provacative CRINGE video, which felt like just a sketch that I screened at @the_g_a_ll_e_r_y , was acquired by the NYPL @nypl alongside videos by other great artists like #DaveMcKenzie… archived forever!!

ty @sevenipads and @xfrcollective

And some pics from @the_g_a_ll_e_r_y install and screening bc I loved being a part of that so much <333

Ty @florian_meisenberg and @ke.anna <33 I loved displaying my video with my felt sculptures.

And some pics from @helloyasmine and my talk at @initialresearch and etc etc etc etc

♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎

HAPPY SEPTEMBER!!!! HAPPY FALL!!!!

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mumulaks & I are excited to join the Initial Research Fellowship alongside an incredible group of artists this year! Im very grateful for the space & time this ‘26/27 @initialresearch to surface ideas & realms ive been playing with & dreaming of. As a mom, this means a lot.

Thanks so much to Yuan @heichiyuanr Hiudi @huidixiang & Christina @huidixiang for bringing us together!

📷
mumulaks portrait by mumulak

Cohort✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

mumuspeak

C-M-C Nested dependency, diagrammatic score

Mumu Philly x karaoke

🟢❇️🟢

🏀🇵🇭

🏀🇧🇪

3333333333333333♾️✨✨✨✨

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Some good news✨I’ve been awarded an
Initial Research Fellowship here in New York.

Really grateful for this opportunity to take some time to ask more questions before they become projects—to listen, experiment, and think alongside others.

Very excited for the year ahead and to get to hang out with the other fellows.

Thank you, Yuan Fuca, Christina Chang and Huidi Xiang for the invitation.

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Beginning the @initialresearch fellowship this month. Looking forward to working alongside the other fellows and with the Initial Research team. Thank you @huidixiang, @heichiyuanr and @christinachang326 for the invitation!

_____
The Initial Research Fellowship is a year-long program that offers time, space, and structural support for artists and practitioners to explore emerging questions, with research understood as a practice of attention, relation, and care.

Image: Minibar, Photo by Keith Fernandes

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Sun and Moon Rotate to This Infinite Present Moment: The 99 Verbs and Wishes for You, My Dear, and for Our Nomadic Life (Rite) is coming up this Thu and Sat at 8:00 PM. Doors open at 7:50 PM. Duration: 60 minutes. @initialresearch

please be on time for time-based work👣🙏

@shina.peng captured images

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Sun and Moon Rotate to This Infinite Present Moment, The 99 Verbs and Wishes for You, My Dear, and to Our Nomadic Life (Rite)

July 16 and 18, 8:00 PM (Doors 7:50 PM)
initial research (41 Wooster Street, FL2)
@initialresearch

Duration: 60 minutes
RSVP is recommended

@shina.peng captured images
🪶

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Coming up!

Anh Vo: Experiments with Ca Trù
Wednesday, March 4 at 8pm
Roulette @roulette_intermedium

✨✨✨

Writer/choreographer Anh Vo brings Ca Trù musicians and contemporary string instrumentalists together for an experimental dialogue. Ca Trù is a rare form of Vietnamese chamber music that faced state persecution after the 1945 revolution due to its historical entanglement with prostitution and opium smoking.

It’s been incredibly moving to witness Vo’s deepening engagement with the form. Join us!

Anh Vo - vocal, dance, drum (@anhqvo)
Kristel Baldoz - vocal dance (@reallygoodatmath)
Vũ Thùy Linh - vocal, phách (@salemlinh87)
Phąm Ðình Hoăng - ðàn ðáy
Jessica Paine - viola (@jjjessicapppavone)
gabby fluke-mogul - violin (@flukemogul)
Marina Kovačević - violin (toserbwithlove)

With production support from @av0cuddl3 and @dotuonglinh

Much gratitude to the institutions that are supporting the development of this work: White Light Cinehub in Hanoi, @participantafterdark @initialresearch @roulette_intermedium and @wescfa at Wesleyan University

And most especially, much gratitude to you @anhqvo ❤️

This project is made possible by the FCA Creative Research grant and the NYSCA support for artist grant.

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For the past month, thanks to a space residency at White Light Cinehub and the FCA Creative Research Grant, I’ve been studying Ca Trù with chị Linh and anh Hoằng—two extraordinary musicians who have devoted years of their lives to sustaining a rare northern Vietnam folk music form with a tumultuous sociopolitical history. I am forever indebted to their generosity and patience. Day after day, they sat with me for hours, breaking down subtle vocal ornamentations, rhythmic structures, and the poetics of the lyrics, then extending those lessons into long lunches and dinners with so many stories surfacing.

I’m grateful for the company of Barley Norton, a brilliant ethnomusicologist who first came to Vietnam in the early 1990s to study Ca Trù and has continued to support and contextualize this work across decades. And to @durationality, who has been in every rehearsal with us, quietly producing hundreds of ethnographic drawings as a record of this unfolding process.

I entered this research with a very different plan, trying to excavate the disavowed prostitution history of the form. Instead, the life of Ca Trù took me somewhere else entirely: towards an earnest apprenticeship and the melancholic resilience of a tradition carried forward by people like anh Hoằng and chị Linh.

This research will culminate in my first NYC solo exhibition at @participantafterdark this May, curated by Alhena Katsof. I’ll be bringing anh Hoàng and chị Linh to the U.S. this spring—deep gratitude to @jlubinlevy and the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University for making this possible. There will be some experiments at @roulette_intermedium and @initialresearch in March. Can’t wait to share this process with you all 💕💕

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2025年，我们始终在路上。
这一年里te出版了两本艺术家书——杨圆圆的《她乡舞曲》、阚辛的《地浪》以及跟天目里美术馆的合作《浮声笔记》；一共参加了 19 座城市的23 场艺术书展。我们庆幸每一次跟不同读者介绍出版物的机会，也希望能多与故土的读者面对面介绍我们做的书。借着回顾，感谢一路以来支持、帮助 te 的每一位朋友。
te将以一场在温州弘美术馆策划的展览“偏食”开启2026年；与Asymmetry合作、也是te做的第一份电子书将在上半年发布，内容以我们作为图书馆员驻留期间所组织的活动的拓展为主；接着是与璐、Herb一起编写一本以法拉盛荣欣广场为起点，讲述法拉盛前世今生的出版物；以及《te magazine 第四期》。
敬请期待。祝 2026 年一切顺利。

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We were constantly on the move in 2025.
In the past year, te published two artists’ books—𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘐𝘯 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 by Luka Yuanyuan and 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘦𝘢 by Kanthy—as well as a collaborative publication, 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘤 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴, with By Art Matters. We also participated in 23 art book fairs across 19 cities, and so much appreciated for every opportunity to introduce our publications to readers from different places, and we especially hope to meet and share our books more often with readers in China. Looking back, we would like to thank every friend who supported and helped te along the way.
We will begin 2026 with 𝘋𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘌𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘴, an exhibition curated by te at Hong Museum. In the first half of the year, we will also release te’s first digital publication in collaboration with Asymmetry, expanding on the projects organized during the Librarian-in-Residence program. This will be followed by a publication that starts from Flushing’s Rongxin Mall and traces the past and present of Flushing with Lu, Herb and so on, as well as the long-awaited 𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦 𝟦.
Stay tuned, and Happy New Year!

@lukayang @kanthypeng @asymmetryartorg @jiaying_kk @byartmatters @initialresearch @hongmuseum_official @wetdreamsneverend @herbtam @solxus

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