Shen Xin: Brine Lake

Artist Shen Xin inaugurates her first solo exhibition in a US museum: a new video and sound installation following its 2021 premiere at the Gwangju Biennial in South Korea. “Brine Lake (A New Body) (2020)” meditates on the intersections of extractive economies, migrant populations, statelessness, and transnational identities.

Set against the backdrop of a fictional iodine recycling factory, the work follows human and non-human protagonists who converse in multiple languages – Korean, Japanese, and Russian – addressing issues such as ecology, technology, economics, and personal memory. Projected on five large screens suspended at intervals in the gallery space, Brine Lake encourages visitors to become active participants as they move between the overlapping episodes in the work.