The Right On! exhibition comes to Santa Fe, New Mexico for API Heritage month. Showcased at the Boulder Museum in 2020, performed post-COVID as a performance in Boulder (2022) and Sacramento( 2023), the project will be exhibited with 36 plaques that trace systemic discrimination of the past 150 years at Vital Spaces. For more information, see the Right On! documentation page. In conjunction with the exhibit, Eng has organized a panel discussion on ‘Art as a Solution.’ The first 40 audiences members receive a free Right On! t-shirt to wear at the opening and be a part of the media photo op.

Please join us for a panel discussion for API Heritage month on ‘Art as a solution’ on May 2nd 3-4 pm at Vital Spaces. The panel features architect Mariah Hoffman, Alkemē chef Erica LiChin Tai, visual and performance artist Szu-Han Ho, curator Machiko Harada, and filmmaker Terry Ngo, moderated by event producer Angie Eng. Broadening the definitions of ‘art’, this panel includes an architect, filmmaker, culinary chef, curator, performance, and visual artist. Each panelist will present 5 minutes of their work, followed by a discussion on how their creativity fosters community, activism, sustainable practices, wellness, and critical dialogue.

Panelist biographies

Filmmaker Terry Ngo has written two short films: Granny Boot Camp and Thread. She co-wrote the short film Good Enough with her husband Nick Stofocik. Both Granny Boot Camp and Good Enough were Finalists for the Mindfield Film Festival in Albuquerque, NM and the latter premiered at Colorado’s Dragon Boat Film Festival. Terry works for Little Globe and the Santa Fe Public Library as a Neighborhood Historian. She was director, DP, and editor for Santa Fe Resident. She has acted in Good Enough, Tie a Yellow Ribbon, Girl with a Walkman, Relative Obscurity, Vacation, Thread, and Cindy’s Nails. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Emerson College and a Master of Arts in Education from Queens College. Terry lives in Santa Fe with her husband and two children.

Erica Tai, the executive chef and general manager of Alkemē – a local James Beard award semi-finalist restaurant. Erica was originally from Taiwan; her culinary passion and commitment are deeply influenced by her cultural heritage and experiences in the diverse culinary landscapes from Taiwan, Hawaii, and New Mexico. With her invested interest in food and nutrition, Erica is also a licensed registered dietitian with MS in nutrition science. 

Machiko Harada was born in Aichi. She is an independent curator who had been based in New York since 2010, and now lives and works in Santa Fe. She studied Art History and Aesthetics in Kanazawa, Japan, and Fine Arts in Gothenburg, Sweden, and did advanced curatorial studies at CCA Kitakyushu and curatorial training at Stichting De Appel in Amsterdam. She was the vice director for art residency programs at Kanazawa College of Art(1999, 2000), and the contemporary arts curator at Akiyoshidai International Art Village(2001-2010), where she realized numerous exhibitions, workshops, and residency programs. Previously, she worked for the Aichi Triennale 2013 as an assistant curator, and recently lectured at Extra Academy in Antwerp (2014). She was a guest curator at Kurumaya Museum of Art in Oyama, Japan, and will be opening a new exhibition at Vladem Contemporary.

Szu-Han Ho is a Taiwanese-American artist, educator, and activist whose work explores the aesthetics of political resistance and historical memory through performance, film/video, sound, and installation. She often works collaboratively, through collective action and structured improvisation. Her work has been exhibited at Tokyo Wonder Site (Tokyo, JP), SOMA (Mexico City, MX), VSF (Los Angeles, CA), Southern Exposure (San Francisco, CA), Tulsa Artist Fellowship Flagship (Tulsa, OK), and Revolutions International Theatre Festival (Albuquerque, NM). Szu-Han has been a recipient of the Art for Justice Fund Grant (2020) and Art Matters Grant (2019). Szu-Han is a founding member of the fronteristxs collective, and she is currently a Professor in Art & Ecology in the Department of Art at the University of New Mexico.

Mariah Hoffman is a self-taught designer, builder, and Architectural Associate based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, known for hand-building her own 156-square-foot tiny home. Over five years, she transformed that experience into a practice of teaching and mentoring others in small-scale, intentional living through her studio, Micro Modula. Her work explores sustainable, human-centered design using biogenic materials, including projects like a hempcrete public pavilion, a tiny house on wheels, and modular furniture. Across disciplines—from architecture to object design—her practice emphasizes resilience, accessibility, and a reimagined relationship to space.