Artist Talk and Tour with Jean Shin
6:30 – 7:45PM
Meet artist Jean Shin, whose Brooklyn Public Library-commissioned sculpture, Something Borrowed Something Blue, was recently unveiled at Brooklyn Heights branch. The artwork is a historic commission for Brooklyn Public Library, marking 125 years of the library system and celebrating the literary passions of Brooklyn.
Shin will present past works and insights on her artistic practice in the program room. Attendees then move upstairs to experience an interactive walkthrough of the artwork, with Shin and BPL Curator Cora Fisher in conversation. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and share their thoughts.
About the Artist
Jean Shin is known for her sprawling and often public sculptures, transforming accumulations of discarded objects into powerful monuments that interrogate our complex relationship between material consumption, collective identity, and community engagement. Often working cooperatively within a community, Shin amasses vast collections of everyday objects—Mountain Dew bottles, mobile phones, 35mm slides—while researching their history of use, circulation, and environmental impact. Distinguished by this labor-intensive and participatory process, Shin’s creations become catalysts for communities to confront social and ecological challenges.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the U.S., Shin works in Brooklyn and Hudson Valley, New York. Her work has been widely exhibited and collected in over 150 major museums and cultural institutions, including solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, and Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where in 2020 she was the first Korean-American woman artist featured in a solo exhibition. Her body of work includes several permanent public artworks commissioned by major agencies and municipalities, most recently a landmark commission for the MTA’s Second Ave Subway in NYC. She is a tenured Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute and holds an honorary doctorate from New York Academy of Art.