art & culture
Small Format is a queer-cooperatively run open-air gallery, and exhibition room that offers a mood-bar, cafe, and snackery based in Providence. Come for a snack, stay for the plants, and immerse yourself in our creative community space.
Learn more about our upcoming events and browse our past exhibitions.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS
Catharsis - Fall 2021
CATHARSIS//
Our Shadows are tethered to the Light, always looming,
like the blood-red lifelines of Fate,
one cannot exist without the other.
The world exists in this duality,
never more,
never less.
Unravel all your constructs,
let go of the burdens that lie out of your control.
The thick of darkness will always seep in.. let it choke you,
so you remember what it feels like to breathe.
Reach up,
reach out,
the darkness may pull you back but it also pushes you forward,
thrusting you into discomfort
to remember comfort,
bringing you down so you can find
the energy within yourself to come back up.
Reach up,
reach out,
these strings will soon unravel.
Soyoon Hia Cha aka SOYOMYOYO was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, raised in Seoul, Korea and currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her BFA in Photography from Lesley University in Cambridge in 2013, and her MFA with concentrations in Video, Sculpture, and Installation from the School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2016.
Soyoon means a “bright light” in Korean. With every light, there lies a shadow, and it is within the shadows Soyoon’s affinities lay. There is polarity in everything and beauty can also be found in the decay, the broken, and the damaged. She is inspired by and appreciates what is overlooked and corroded by time, recognizing and embracing her demons to create work that reflects the mania within and the Shadow that is ever present
PAST EXHIBITIONS/ARTISTS
Queer Resistance - Summer 2021
Remember the first Pride was a riot! To us, “Queerness” is about spreading love! Pride is also about love! Love offers pleasure and joy as fuel, not just reward. Love asks us to live with integrity which requires actively defecting from the normative culture of unsustainable, and oppressive dynamics. Basically, we love, love—especially big Homo+Trans love! 🏳️⚧️
Pride is actually kind of everyday at an intentionally queer place like Small Format. But, during this summer after COVID kept us in for so long, we celebrated extra hard, ushering in the summer solstice, cultivating collectivity NOT conformity, and dancing in heaps of QUEER JOY+PLEASURE, with events like a PRIDE Open Mic Youth Night, Queer Tea Dance, and a Reclaiming Radical Mindfulness & Meditation workshop series.
Collective Memory - Spring 2021
Our art exhibition “Collective Memory” features works from artists and collectives Binch Press, Queer Futures, Print Aint Dead, and Queer Archive Work, alongside other local efforts such as the Solastalgia zine by Sara Inacio and Adrian Cato (pictured above).
Home (oh) - Winter 2020
The late season monarch butterfly travels nearly 3000 miles using only the energy they stored as a caterpillar in the cocoon. This exhibition served to explore the intangible, and fleshy concepts of the embodiment of “home”, This showcase of four different artists and mediums opened on the first day of the new solar year: Alexa Guariglia, Mary Lindberg, Josh Messier, and Lindsay Weitzman.
interested in working with us?