In 1998, eighteen-year-old Jonathan See Lim, known as "Tie One", was shot and killed in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. A prolific graffiti artist, Lim was painting on the side of a building and pleaded for his life to his killer, a resident who claimed self-defense. Though no hate crime charges were filed, many in the Asian American and art communities understood the killing through the lens of race. After his death, fellow graffiti writers created massive tribute murals called "Tie Tributes" across the Bay Area, insisting on his continued presence. In graffiti culture, a tribute honors artists by refusing to let their memory fade, by putting their name back into circulation, by declaring they still matter in the world. TRIBUTE borrows this framework to spotlight Asian American artists who helped build American DIY, punk, and street culture—figures who remain largely invisible in these movements' histories.

Thắm Lại brings together four artists, Tường Danh, Như Xuân Hứa, Anh-Phuong Nguyen, and Vân-Nhi Nguyễn, to examine desire as progress, tracing how women’s longing has shaped Vietnamese culture across centuries. The exhibition takes its title from a line in “Mời ăn trầu” (Offering Betel), a poem attributed to the poet Hồ Xuân Hương, referencing the concept of thắm lại, the act of becoming red again, a staining that accrues through repetition and the labors of wanting. At the heart of the show is the concept of duyên: a bond written in fate, carrying people into one another’s lives and out again.