AGE: 35
BASED IN: Saint Paul, Mni Sota Makoce (Minnesota) and Portree, Isle of Skye
What’s in a name? Shen Xin, who was born in Chengdu, China, has centered their practice on what the language we use surfaces, and leaves out, since earning an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2014. Their work—exhibited at the Swiss Institute, Walker Art Center, and through Dec. 21 at Edinburgh’s Collective—filters this inquiry through moving image, performance, and writing that draws from personal history, myth, and scientific research.
Describe one work you’ve made that captures who you are as an artist.
Since the relationship between the works and myself is not unchanging, I can describe the most recent work I’ve made. It is a 16mm film with a short duration in black and white, and the film is developed by utilizing the leaves of a type of cotoneaster on the Isle of Skye. Titled Bearing Fruit of Fondness, it’s a film that explores innate belonging of mother-child patterns in one’s life through filming the everyday, that is absent of both strangeness and familiarity.
Describe your work in three words.
Truth, kindred, light.
What’s an artwork you didn’t make, but wish you had?
On my father’s bookshelf, I encountered Liverpool from Wapping by John Atkinson Grimshaw when I was little. I was taken by the warm light; it reminded me of how we used to pass by windows and shop fronts like that. The quality of this light near the water is hard to come by today.
What’s an underrated studio tool you can’t live without?
A pair of binoculars. If you live in built-up areas this might sound strange, but I live in the country and it’s a form of distraction I enjoy: watching those who come and go in the sky and in the ocean.
Is there a studio rule you live by?
I try to tune into my aspirations before I start doing anything, while keeping in mind the subject for every practice.
See CULTURED‘s full 2025 Young Artists list and access other individual artist profiles here.
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