We think we’ve seen it all with how creative artists can get with their material. We saw wood, glass, metal, and even bones in their work, but have we ever seen someone incorporate living organisms? You will have after seeing TJ Shin’s work.
https://www.apollo-magazine.com/tj-shin-apollo-40-under-40-asia-pacific-the-artists/
TJ Shin isn’t just limited to being an artist, they are an alchemist, fermenter, and a biologist. In their 2020 research for Microbial Speculation of Our Gut Feeling, Shin discovered something interesting: immigrants are more prone to metabolic diseases because they lose healthy gut microbes.
This hypothesis has led them to research on the relationship between colonialism, consumption, gender, and boundaries between the living and dead. Using that idea, Shin transformed a gallery into a garden and a fermentation room where they brewed lactic acid and did workshops to make water kimchi.
“Universal Skin Salvation 2.0: Strange Life: Beauty, Race & War” at Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University (2018)
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-10-korean-artists-shaping-contemporary-art
By using these living entities, Shin not only highlights the beauty and complexity of nature but also draws attention to the relationship between humans and the environment.
Their most famous work, “The Vegetation: the Swamp, the Swarm & the Cross,” Shin uses transfected mugwort (invasive species), malaria, and even their own urine to discover what it means to be a pest or something contagious. According to Shin, diseases are seen as a threat and breaches of “private ownership” so there’s a sense of humanness in them (link). The artist’s goal with this piece was to think about the life of a mugwort to purify them by burning and materializing them.
Preserved transfected mugwort with the artist’s DNA (2022)
https://www.artpapers.org/unbecoming-human-interview-with-tj-shin/
The installation’s intention was to look dirty, infective, and to stain in order to come to a decolonized understanding of nature. It blurs the line between dirty and pure. It aligns with their belief that concepts of cleanliness and goodness create channels for violence.
TJ Shin has created an extraordinary amount of pieces, galleries, and installations with similar themes and material, but each is unique and stands out in its own ways. She has done exhibitions internationally including Queens Museum, Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center, The Bows, etc. Currently, she continues to work on more artistic pieces in Los Angeles.
See more of their work below:
Untitled (Self-Portrait 3) digital print from microscope scans (2022)
Stain Begins to Absorb the Material Spilled on (2020)