Chuna Chugay: Chin to Eye
Koryo-Saram Landscapes
May 8th — June 5th 2026 at 368 E 8th Street
Photograph 1 by Elizabeth White, 2-7 by Peter Cramer
Allied Productions proudly presents Chin to Eye, a solo exhibition at our 8th Street Studio featuring recent works in painting and graphic narrative by Chuna Chugay, curated by Grace Muller. Chugay’s first collaboration with Allied, as well as their first solo exhibition in New York, comes after their participation in a 4-week residency at the Vermont Studio Center and includes works produced there. Chin to Eye offers a checkpoint for reflection on Chugay’s ongoing projects addressing the history of the Koryo-Saram diaspora, including their 1937 deportation, and its reverberations in their own life.
Chin to Eye pairs Chugay’s recent series of expansive portraits with pages from their upcoming graphic novel, That Same Wind, and invites visitors to settle between narratively continuous and fragmented moments. Across projects, Chugay’s lines connect, twirl, pucker, glow, commune and cut each other off. Whatever their action or character, they buzz with the same sure finality of life proceeding.
As the rising fascist regime in the United States increasingly weaponizes racially motivated forced deportation by ICE, it is more vital than ever to look at the histories of communities who have survived displacement and whose lived experiences provide insight into the intergenerational aftermath of state violence.
Chuna Chugay (they/them) is a nonbinary Koryo-Saram artist born and raised in Moscow and currently based in New York City. Their work investigates the legacy of the 1937 ethnic cleansing of Koryo-Saram from the Russian Far East to Central Asia, drawing from oral history research, archival materials, and personal memory. Working across painting and graphic storytelling, Chugay explores how histories of forced migration and cultural erasure persist across generations.
Grace Muller (she/her) is a Los Angeles-born, Brooklyn-based artist and organizer. She uses drawing, performance, and installation to recontextualize the contents of her everyday life. As an archival assistant at Allied, she participates in the stewardship and future planning of the organization’s archival holdings. Muller also hosts the experimental pop music radio show Lilypad with DJ Leggings, every Tuesday afternoon on Paper Moon Radio Station. Her partnership with Chugay on this exhibition is born from their friendship and mutual trust.
Chuna Chugay, That Same Wind, panel detail