“Sometimes you don’t know what you’re making, other than your intuition telling you to make it – telling you there’s something here.” Richard Choi’s “A Prayer in Three Acts” is an exploration of the beauty of uncertainty, of the chance encounter, of not knowing the way forward, but going anyway. What happens when you pull over to the side of the road because you saw an interesting group of people you want to photograph? What happens when you greet the stranger, warmly? When you ask, hoping, to be a part of their story, if only for one brief but immutable moment?
Choi’s “A Prayer in Three Acts,” a rotating exhibition currently hosted in the Korn Gallery and curated by Professors Rory Mulligan and Rebecca Soderholm, does not answer all those questions for you, but shows a slice of possibility for those who reach out in our ever-isolating world.
Previously featuring curated works from Choi’s “What Remains,” a series of video-photo paired pieces, “A Prayer in Three Acts”is currently in its second evolution; a short video segment titled “Trampoline,” which features a small snippet of the life of a family living in 2011-era Inland Empire, Southern California, where Choi spent a large portion of his own childhood.
It begins with the sound of muffled laughter and a blank screen, before two children playing, jumping on a trampoline placed out in the yard, come swiftly into view.
The camera follows them silently, jostled by the jumps, a quiet observer. It steadies soon, following the young girl, as she lies, tired, on the floor of the trampoline, before standing to gaze outwards toward the setting Californian sun. The next shot pans to a young woman telling off a small black dog, calling its name, Honey, sharply as she cradles a glass jar. Another, older, woman walks past in the background, moving around the yard as the sky settles into twilight.
It is a piece content in its own existence, a transition of sorts, for both the exhibition, as well as Choi’s artistry. A large part of the narrative of Choi’s work is chance—the blind stumbling into something beautiful, be that conversation with a stranger or the click of the shutter when you didn’t mean to press it.
Videography, similarly, made an inadvertent entrance into Choi’s life. “Accidentally, I pushed the record button and the world started changing… my definition of photography started changing… it had sound all of a sudden, it had movement, it had changing colors, all these things started to come through as a different type of photograph,” said Choi.
A second narrative that weaves its way through the colorful tapestry of “A Prayer in Three Acts” is in fact, prayer. Prayer, Choi explained, is a sort of acceptance to him, an acceptance that you don’t know what to do, you’re out of options—what else is there but to hope, in a kind of aching way?
Choi explores the intersection between prayer and daily life, and how faith makes its way into everyday interactions and tasks. While in an earlier iteration of the exhibit, this came through in photos of people actively praying, the exhibit examines prayer in a much broader sense. It leans into the universal hoping and dreaming in life, and how different people chase after those hopes and dreams, especially the leaning into fortune in their faith.
This theme is not only communicated through the work itself, but how Choi worked to create it. In order for him to get the opportunities he did for photos and videos, he put his faith in strangers to give him a window into their worlds, their hopes and their dreams.
What is a chance encounter, a photograph if not a kind of prayer? “What a blessing to even have that moment of exchange,” said Choi.
“A Prayer in Three Acts”will be on view until March 6, 2026 in the Korn Gallery, open Tuesday through Friday 12-4 p.m. While the selection of photos from “What Remains” are no longer on exhibition, “Trampoline” and the mysterious final act of Choi’s exhibit are still, and will be, available for viewing.
More information regarding Choi’s works can be found in the official press release of the exhibition.
Elliot Yap is a sophomore double majoring in art and media and communications and minoring in photography. Nathan Moldover is a first year double majoring in political science and philosophy.
