MoMA PS1: Red Canary Song's "Touch the Heart"

 

by Alicia Li

A stand out piece from MoMA PS1's Greater New York 2026 exhibition, is Red Canary Song's Homeroom project: Touch the Heart. Touch the Heart, the english translation to the Cantonese phrase "dim sum", is an installation dedicated to illustrating the intimate relationships and stories about migration, autonomy, grief, and sex work. 

Touch the Heart uses the word play from its translation of dim sum in the installation. Dim sum for many migrants of the Asian diaspora, was a place of communion and cultural saftey, similar to Red Canary Song's mission. Behind the pink curtains lies four dim sum banquet tables, each dedicated towards different aspects in the worker's stories. Table I is dedicated towards grief and longing. Table II is dedicated towards migration and sanctuary. Table III towards the fine line intimacy of body care, labor, and desire. Table IV is dedicated towards providing more resources in forms of books and magazines to continue the education on the politics of sex work.

Through the haze of the sheer soft pink curtains, I was deeply moved by the attention to detail in the installation. Specifically in Table III: Body Care, Desire, & Labor, the lingering scent of tiger balm and acupunctured breast implants describe the often fetishized fine line between intimate body care and erotic power. While Red Canary Song describes some of their work to be tongue-in-cheek, I was thoroughly reminded of the many realities of asian massage and sex workers, where their likeness, lively hood, and agency have been taken advantage of. Table II also had an auditory experience, helping the installation be a fully sensory induced experience. This immersion had driven in how much the collective cares for their cause and respects their fellow community members.