NEW YORK, NY.- Scarlett Chen’s latest exhibition, Moments of Her, is a visual and sensory meditation on the inner worlds of women navigating the pulse of New York City. Presented in an intimate Tribeca gallery, the show unfolds in two movements: a photographic series that reads like stills from an untold film, and an immersive light installation rooted in the ancient chakra system. Together, they offer a map—emotional, energetic, and quietly revelatory—of what it means to move through the world while holding an inner life.
The first room presents a series of cinematic portraits of women caught in fleeting moments: waiting beneath the fluorescent hum of a subway station, crossing the street in silk at dusk, pausing mid-thought on the museum steps. Shot throughout the city, these images capture more than time and place—they distill a feeling. New York becomes both a backdrop and a co-conspirator, offering up scenes that feel at once universal and deeply personal.
Each photograph is composed with a cinematographer’s eye and a meditator’s stillness. “They are every woman who has ever moved through a city with an inner world no one sees,” Chen shares. “This exhibit is about what’s invisible—what breathes beneath the surface.” These are not simply portraits of women, but of their internal states: solitude, sensuality, waiting, becoming. The frames resist narrative closure and instead open windows—moments held long enough to feel.
Chen’s interest lies not only in what is visible, but in what is sensed. The exhibition explores how emotion, memory, and energy leave subtle imprints on our daily movements. “We move through cities,” she notes, “but we’re also moving through ourselves.”
The second room offers a shift—from visual observation to visceral immersion. Inspired by the chakra system, Chen has created a meditative light installation using TouchDesigner, a visual programming language known for its real-time generative visuals. As guests step inside, they’re enveloped in waves of shifting color and sound—each frequency corresponding to an energetic center within the body.
From the deep red of the root (safety and grounding) to the ethereal violet of the crown (connection and transcendence), the room invites a journey inward. Each animation pulses in rhythm with breath, creating an ambient invitation to exhale, sit, and feel. The space becomes a sanctuary—offering not escape from the city, but a deeper descent into one’s own internal terrain.
Moments of Her is ultimately a meditation on presence. On what it means to be witnessed. On the unspoken emotional ecosystems women navigate daily—both seen and unseen. It is a love letter to the women of New York, and to the inner worlds we each carry in silence.
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