Yarn of sweaters collected from the Asian American art community
Dimensions variable
Installation at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2018
Installation at Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 2009
Commissioned by Asia Society and Museum, New York for exhibition One Way or Another, Asian American Art Now, 2006
Traveled to Blaffer Art Gallery at University of Houston, TX, Berkeley Art Museum, CA, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles and Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii
This project visualizes the intricate network of relationships in the Asian American art community. Originally commissioned in 2006 by the Asia Society in New York, the work features hundreds of sweaters contributed by communities in New York, Houston, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia. Shin deconstructed and reassembled the sweaters on three walls, linking the sweaters of acquaintances with strands of yarn to create a colorful map of personal connections.
In this short time-lapse video, see how Jean Shin’s site-specific work Unraveling transformed three white gallery walls into a colorful installation over the course of seven days. Video produced by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2018.
