A Woman Worth Watching

By Lindsay Inglis

Hyeyoung Shin has an incredible artistic practice that has transitioned over the years to focus on the human foot, a complex yet humble and often overlooked part of the body. Shin completed two BFAs in South Korea before moving to the United States for her MFA and has worked as a professor at the University of Missouri since 2013. She has been an artist in residence in various institutions around the world and shown in many group and solo exhibitions. Her latest work is currently on display in Paper Routes, part of the Women to Watch series at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.

Hyeyoung Shin, Tide, 2019–present, Cast Gampi paper, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

After a three month delay due to covid-19, Paper Routes opened both online and in person on October 8th. This exhibition is not a competition for up and coming women artists, but a way to celebrate a diverse group of women, as well as different approaches to materials. Women to Watch is created along with the Museum’s outreach committees throughout the United States, Europe, and South America. Each instalment of the series focuses on a different material for artmaking, this year’s being paper. There are twenty-two artists participating in Paper Routes, making it the largest Women to Watch yet.

Shin’s artwork is comprised of feet cast in paper, they are simultaneously fragile and strong. She has been casting feet for seven years and considers this a lifelong project. Beginning in 2013 for an installation titled Weight of Being at the Anderson Gallery in Buffalo, New York, Shin juxtaposed delicate paper sculptures of feet with photographs of the bottom of feet. The sculptures are made out of gampi paper, one of the lightest papers in the world, and through it, individual bones and joints can be seen. In the photographs, viewers can see the weight put on feet as individuals stand in place. Weight of Being took place just after Shin finished grad school, and she was trying to find a job as an artist. She was torn with the feelings of heaviness in life and a lightness she felt after finishing her program. These conflicted feelings manifest themselves through feet in Weight of Being.

Hyeyoung Shin, Tide (detail), 2019–present, Cast Gampi paper, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

For Paper Routes, Shin has included sixty pairs of cast feet to create Tide. She has described the work as an installation of human movement. Shin was inspired by the Women’s Marches in 2017 and wanted to create a work that represented the different paths individuals have walked to obtain social justice. She stated: “These pieces are used to inspire retrospective

thoughts about our paths as we walk through the current gender, environmental, economic, social, and political issues.” As an often mistreated part of the body, a person’s feet are the perfect symbol when representing social issues that result in marches and protests.

Tide is an ongoing work, with more feet included each time it is exhibited. It is a work that can transform and take on new meanings as time goes on and new narratives are added to the journey of social justice.

Bibliography

“Exhibition Tour,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, 6 November 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbSJQKpv93g

“Paper Routes – Women to Watch 2020,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, https://nmwa.org/exhibitions/paper-routes-women-to-watch-2020/

“Studio Tour with Hyeyoung Shin,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, 13 October 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TZFgS1mkK8 “Tide,” Hyeyoung Shin, https://www.hyeyoung-shin.com/tide.html visited on 9 November 2020.

“Women to Watch 2020 – Paper Routes,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, 9 November 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu1ulDJ8wb8