“Photography is a language,” explains Tommy Kha. With a humorous and poignant touch, Kha examines how we construct belonging and otherness through photography, inventing new models for self-portraiture with a critical eye toward the medium’s long history of absences and erasure. Other Things Uttered, his first museum solo exhibition, which was on view at the Addison from September 2, 2025 to January 25, 2026, introduced viewers to the distinctive vocabulary and grammar of his photographic practice.
Kha was the second recipient of the biannual Bartlett H. Hayes Jr. Prize, awarded by the Addison Artist Council (AAC). The Hayes Prize builds on the Addison’s nearly century-long commitment to supporting living artists by providing an artist with a first solo museum exhibition, along with a publication, an acquisition of art for the Addison’s collection, and a residency on campus.
The Addison was fortunate to be able to connect students with Kha multiple times during his extended residency—first during the planning stages of his exhibition, and then again by bringing students into conversation with the works in the gallery while the show was on view.
January 2025
As Kha was experimenting with ideas for his exhibition, Phillips Academy’s Film Photography, Advanced Digital Art, and Curatorial courses visited him in the Addison’s Visiting Artist Studio to see his progress. Students were fascinated by the behind-the-scenes peek into his thinking as he transformed photography into a sculptural installation evoking themes of family, identity, and home.
April 2025
In further preparation for his exhibition, Kha met with 129 students to kickstart his Chain Letter Project, which would later be included in the Addison’s exhibition. This second iteration built upon his Chain Letter Project (No. 1), first exhibited at New York’s Baxter St Project Space in 2023. During the COVID-19 pandemic, amid rising violence against Asian Americans, Kha envisioned photography as a means of building community and solidarity. He distributed disposable cameras to Asian American friends nationwide, asking them to document their daily lives in response to a series of prompts.
For his exhibition at the Addison, Kha collaborated with students and faculty from a variety of Art and English courses at Phillips Academy, Andover High School, Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, and Middlesex Community College in Lowell, who used shared disposable cameras to respond to identity- and family-inspired prompts. Their images became a layered photocollage that explored community and collective memory and was exhibited in the museum’s rotunda.
October 2025
With the exhibition Hayes Prize 2025: Tommy Kha, Other Things Uttered on view in the galleries, Kha again returned to campus, this time to meet with classes and discuss the connections students found between his exhibition and their studies. During this visit Kha met with students studying photography at Andover High School, AP Art at Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, race and ethnicity at Lowell High School, and Phillips Academy courses in the English Department (Asian American Literature and Film), Theatre Department (Asian American Dramatic Literature), and Art Department (Visual Studies, Drawing).
Many students also participated in a filled-to-capacity dinner discussion with Kha about immigrant identities in the arts, hosted in partnership with Phillips Academy’s Community and Multicultural Development Office (CAMD).
Kha also led multiple iterations of a mask-making and photography workshop, one for Phillips Academy students and faculty in partnership with CAMD as part of AAPI Heritage Month, and again as a public program at the Addison for the larger community. Attendees explored Kha’s method of using stand-ins for himself in self-portraiture, photographing printouts of their faces, hands, and in some cases, favorite ear around the museum and across campus.
In addition to those who met with Kha himself during his extended residency, over 40 classes and groups visited his exhibition, from kindergarten classes to teachers in professional development workshops, and left with new ideas about representation of identity and belonging.
