Repetition of Control was presented by Artistry Edge from May 15–17 at A Space Gallery during NYCxDESIGN as an official festival program. The exhibition was co-curated by Chenyang Nie (Artistry Edge) and independent curator and creative director Sophie Wei, with production support from New York–based textile studio Soft Hours. Bringing together emerging artists and designers working across textiles, installation, sculpture, moving image, furniture, and spatial practice, the exhibition investigated how repetitive structures shape labor, memory, technology, and human interaction.
Beginning from weaving and patterned construction as some of humanity’s earliest organizational systems, the curatorial framework traced how repetition evolved from craft-based traditions carrying ritual and cultural memory into mechanisms of industrial efficiency, standardization, and algorithmic control. Rather than organizing works by medium, the exhibition focused on shared processes of accumulation, repetition, translation, and reconstruction. Ceramic coiling, repetitive drawing, modular fabrication, sound recording, weaving structures, and generative coding were presented as parallel systems of making.
Supported by the curatorial experience and emerging artist platform developed by Artistry Edge founder Chenyang Nie, the exhibition combined professional exhibition production with interdisciplinary experimentation. Sophie Wei contributed the creative direction and conceptual framework, drawing from a long-developed network of artists, designers, and spatial practitioners to connect contemporary art, design, and emerging creative communities within a cohesive curatorial vision.
Created by artists working at the intersection of digital imaging, material experimentation, and computational processes, the Seed series by Seed Gallery examines how organic forms shift once filtered through digital systems. Through extraction, replication, fragmentation, and recomposition, the work reveals tensions between natural complexity and computational control, producing images that feel simultaneously biological and synthetic.
Italian artist Alice Tedesco creates ceramic works through repetitive hand-coiling processes that transform simple lines into delicate, shifting forms. In LINEE, spontaneous gestures become an intricate object resembling a floating drawing, reflecting her focus on repetition, subtle variation, and the tactile memory of clay. The work demonstrates how repeated gestures can produce forms that feel both fragile and resistant, balancing structure with unpredictability.
In I-Doll, Yui Lin explores how contemporary idol culture transforms the body into a manufactured image shaped for visibility, circulation, and consumption. Using metallic structures, mirrored surfaces, and cinematic textures, the work presents the figure as both perfected and emotionally distant, questioning what remains of individuality once identity becomes an endlessly replicated spectacle.
In Untitled (Lucy2), Chris Geier translates computational visual systems into hand-rendered forms through layered mark-making and repetitive drawing. Introducing imperfections that disrupt digital uniformity, the work reframes code-driven systems as vulnerable and deeply human.
Through furniture and lighting objects merging industrial materials with symbolic forms, Anya Savinova examines how repetition and structure shape emotional and physical experience. Repeated geometric forms and exposed systems create objects that feel simultaneously functional and confrontational, revealing how everyday objects quietly direct behavior and spatial power.
In Spoon, Songer Yang transforms a domestic object into a reflection on memory and grief through the repeated recreation of a lost spoon from memory over a month-long process. In Love Letters from NYC, Shristi Singh turns New York’s soundscape into an interactive archive using generative visuals shaped by real-time recordings and human presence, exploring technology as a space for emotional exchange and collective memory.
Over its three-day presentation at A Space Gallery, Repetition of Control brought together artists, designers, curators, and visitors from across the New York creative community, with more than 200 attendees at the opening reception. Organized by Artistry Edge and Sophie Wei, the exhibition created a professional platform for emerging artists to present interdisciplinary work while fostering dialogue, collaboration, and new creative connections across art and design communities. For more information, you can visit Artistry Edge.
