My Mother's Tongue Ties Me Together

Since 1997, the Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards have celebrated the outstanding achievements of contemporary artists living in the Kansas City area. Awardees receive an unrestricted cash award and an opportunity to exhibit in a prominent museum setting. The Spencer Museum of Art is honored to host this exhibition for the first time featuring the selected artists for 2025: Noelle Choy, Hùng Lê, and Merry Sun. 

All three artists explore themes of cultural myth-making, memory, and migration through a range of media. Choy’s large scale theatrical sculptures, performative objects, and humorous videos utilize improvised materials and methods to explore personal stories, counter narratives, and the diasporic experience. Lê’s textile collages and installations investigate the aftermath of the American War in Việt Nam and how personal and collective memory is created and preserved through objects, photographs, education, archives, and propaganda. Sun’s interactive, architectural, soundscape installations encourage audiences to reflect on migration, movement, and belonging while considering their own spaces, places, and surroundings. 

The 2025 Charlotte Street Awards were selected through a competitive process beginning with an open call for applications from artists based in the five-county Kansas City Metro Area and in Douglas County, Kansas. Selections were made by a panel of arts professionals from across the country: Alex Paik, Samantha Best, Alex Santana, and Sydney Pursel. The exhibition is organized by the Spencer's Curator for Public Practice Sydney Pursel in collaboration with the artists and Charlotte Street.