Make Room is proud to present four concurrent exhibitions—Ode to Slowness by Tuan Vu, Kyoko’s Room by Kaz Oshiro, As If by Aleza Zheng, and the group exhibition CULT: THE AMERICAN DREAM, curated by Zachariah Buteux. Together, these exhibitions examine how identity is constructed—through slowness and resistance, through objects and perfection, through fiction and myth, and through the collective rituals of national belief.

In Ode to Slowness, Montreal-based artist Tuan Vu renders luminous scenes of feminine stillness set against the layered histories of Vietnam’s colonial past. Drawing formal inspiration from Les Nabis, Vu adopts flattened perspectives and decorative color to reclaim a visual language once tied to French Indochina. His serene figures, immersed in tropical flora and architectural remnants of foreign rule, embody repose as quiet defiance—honoring cultural continuity, memory, and the enduring strength of women.

In Kyoko’s Room, Los Angeles–based artist Kaz Oshiro constructs a meticulously painted environment of hyperreal objects that blur the boundary between sculpture and image. Inspired by the set design of Eiko Ishioka for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters—a biopic by Paul Schrader on the life of Yukio Mishima—Oshiro transforms amplifiers, cabinets, and suitcases into devotional studies of wear, labor, and illusion. Each scratch and imperfection is painstakingly rendered, elevating the ordinary into a stage where identity is performed and perfection pursued.

Aleza Zheng’s As If traverses the porous boundary between truth and fiction, drawing from classical Chinese aesthetics and the philosophical premise of Hugo Vaihinger’s The Philosophy of As If. Her layered landscapes and shadowed figures privilege sensation over realism, capturing the emotional residue of stories that shape cultural consciousness. Referencing moments such as the horse scene in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and its later mythologization in the life of Friedrich Nietzsche, Zheng suggests that art, literature, and lived experience exist in a continuous feedback loop—each shaping the truths we inhabit.

CULT: THE AMERICAN DREAM expands this inquiry into the collective sphere. Structured as a theatrical progression, the exhibition traces how the mythology of opportunity and belonging can shift toward ritual, conformity, and surrender. Through imagery drawn from Americana—porches, diners, deserts, and flags—the participating artists examine how national identity operates as belief system. Accompanied by Excerpts From a Fictional Diary, 1961–1978, the exhibition charts a descent from personal grief to communal entanglement, asking when aspiration hardens into dogma and when belonging becomes devotion.