Moody Center for the Arts | Lois Chiles Studio Theater
Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024 | Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024
Mel Chin’s art employs a wide range of approaches, from unique, idiosyncratic objects to operations that require multidisciplinary collaboration. He insists that projects in the public field are dosed with a rigorous pragmatism and an elevated poetic. Chin’s studio work is notably without a signature style resulting in works suffused with a deeply considered restraint or excess to promote an unpredictable aesthetic.
His Revival Field (1990) pioneered in the field of “green remediation” the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. From 1995-1998, he formed the GALA Committee, a collective that produced In the Name of the Place, a public art project conducted on American prime-time television. His film 9-11/9-11 won the Pedro Sienna Award for Animation in Chile. His nationwide initiative, Fundred, addresses childhood lead-poisoning through art-making. He founded S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio to both enlarge the dialogue and realize sustained engagements with community and environment. In 2018, he presented Unmoored and Wake in Times Square, New York City, creating a visual portal into a future of rising waters. Concurrently, he presented a 40-year-survey exhibition at the Queens Museum that Hyperallergic named the best art exhibition of 2018.
Chin is the recipient of many awards, grants, and honorary degrees, including the MacArthur Fellowship, 2019, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2021.
