KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is proud to present SPHERE NOT, a solo exhibition by multimedia artist Cecile Chong on view from June 19 to July 16, 2025, with an opening reception on Friday, June 20, 6-8pm and public program with Broken China (Tao Leigh Goffe and Cecile Chong) on Friday, June 27, 6-9pm. on Friday, June 27, 6-9pm.

Through immersive sound and evocative visual imagery, the exhibition conjures the amorphous specter of a collective fate unfolding in a world teetering on the edge of calamity. Chong's work explores our inability to break from destructive patterns, and how systems of culture and commerce distract us with comforting illusions. These mechanisms allow us to hold catastrophe at bay, keeping it just outside the margins of everyday life, until it inevitably surges into our reality.

Rather than offering a resolution, SPHERE NOT inhabits the ambiguity between grief and apathy, between collective mourning and the will to act. The works gesture toward a kind of emotional fossil record, layers of distraction, desire, and despair sedimented into our everyday lives. The exhibition traces a liminal psychological space, one in which we bargain with uncertainty, make peace with resignation, or feign normalcy in the face of collapse. Our future may not be set in stone, but Chong’s work insists that we reckon with its shape and texture now, before it hardens beyond our reach.

A portion of the proceeds from SPHERE NOT will be donated to the Galápagos Conservancy.

About the Artist:

Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macau. Her public art installations include Art in Buildings/125 Maiden Lane (2024), Makerspark (2024), EL DORADO – The New forty Niners was installed in five boroughs of NYC (2017-2022). Fellowships and residencies include Art Omi, Marble House Project, Surf Point Foundation, Dieu Donné Workspace, BAC - Brooklyn Arts Fund, Asian Women Giving Circle, NYSCA, LMCC Creative Engagement, Urban Field Station, The Hispanic Society’s Vilcek Artist Research Fellowship, Block Gallery/Bronx Museum, BRIC Media Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Solo exhibitions include Kates-Ferri Projects, Smack Mellon, Kenise Barnes, among others. Chong’s work is in the collections of El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Chinese in America, The Studio Museum, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Smithsonian Institution, The Long Island Museum, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Citibank Art Advisory, and private collections internationally. She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College. Chong is currently part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program and is a co-director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid. She is a member of Hudson Yards Hell Kitchen Art Advisory Committee and is the co-chair of the Smack Mellon board.

Artist Statement: 

Cecile Chong is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, public art, and video, layering materials, identities, histories, and languages. Her work addresses ideas of cultural interaction and interpretation, as well as the commonalities humans share both in our relationship to nature and to each other. Inspired by materials as signifiers, she’s interested in how we acquire and share culture, and how world cultures now overlap and interact in ways previously inconceivable. With uncertainty looming in everything from our economies to our weather patterns, she’s been looking at the fragility of our civilization despite the universality of its cultural underpinnings.

About the Curator:

Tessa Ferreyros is a curatorial professional with 15 years of experience managing non-profit and private arts organizations and projects. With a focus on public art, Tessa is committed to creating innovative and accessible installations that allow audiences to engage with thought-provoking art in unexpected ways and provide a diverse and inclusive platform for contemporary artists to showcase their work.

Tessa is the Director and Curator of Art-in-Buildings (AiB). She previously served as Curatorial Manager for Madison Square Park Conservancy where she organized large-scale installations with Leonardo Drew, Arlene Shechet, and Krzysztof Wodiczko. Prior to Madison Square Park Conservancy, Tessa worked as a Curatorial Assistant at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) where she oversaw the Adrian Piper retrospective A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965-2016.

Available Art Work from Exhibition 

Video of exhibition on YouTube