Shen Xin works with moving image, sound, text, painting, performance, and installation. Their practice is grounded in recognising the fundamental social responsibilities inherent in interconnectedness, cultivating a direct relationship with what emerges within shared ecosystems. Often unfolding through time-based processes that attend closely to elemental kinship, language, physical movement, sonic environments, and socio-political boundaries, their work becomes a site for transforming aggression that arise from conditional ways of relating to the world. The making is an ongoing inquiry into the causes and conditions of all that manifests across materiality and perception, rhythm and meaning, individual pain and collective liberation. Through engagement with embodied experience, the responsive and unconditional nature of care emerges as the work mirrors awareness and expressions of capacity, forming both a transformative path and a shared offering.
They were born in Chengdu, Sichuan, and find home in Northern An t-Eilean Sgitheanach (Isle of Skye). Recent solo presentations include Collective, Edinburgh (2025), TINA, London (2025), Richmond Art Gallery, BC (2024), M HKA, Antwerp (2023), KUNSTVEREIN GARTENHAUS, Vienna (2023), Swiss Institute, New York (2022), and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021). Recent group exhibitions were held at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2024), 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023), 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2023), MUMA, Melbourne (2021), 13th Gwangju Biennale (2021), Sigg Prize, M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2019), and 4th New Museum Triennial, New York (2018). Past residencies and awards include Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2023-2024), Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2018-2019), ACC-Rijksakademie Dialogue and Exchange, Gwangju & Amsterdam (2016-2017), and BALTIC Artists’ Award, Gateshead (2017).
shenxinstudio (at) gmail (dot) com
All images on this website include alt text. Some works have closed captions online, some have integrated captions as video installations, and some are accompanied by their own sonic description scores. If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out via the email below. Thank you.
newsletters
Links
Exhibitions
Mink and Berry, TINA, London
but this is the language we met in, Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC
Brine Lake (A New Body), M HKA, Antwerp
ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་འགྱུར། (THE EARTH TURNED GREEN), Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna
ས་གཞི་སྔོན་པོ་འགྱུར། (THE EARTH TURNED GREEN), Swiss Institute, New York
Brine Lake (A New Body), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Texts
The Skinny, Rethinking Roots: Shen Xin on Highland Embassy, Jelena Sofronijevic
AnOther Magazine, The Artist Revealing the Healing Power of Language, Kate Wong
ArtForum, Critic’s Pick: Shen Xin at Swiss Institute, Gu Qianfan
ArtReview Asia, Shen Xin Explores Statelessness in East Asia, Mark Rappolt
13th Gwangju Biennale: Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, Shen Xin, Defne Ayas
Phaidon, Prime: Art’s Next Generation, Shen Xin, Alvin Li
M+ Museum, Sigg Prize, Interview with Shen Xin, Pi Li
CURA, Shen Xin, Alise Upitis
Mousse Magazine, Rules of Traction, Alvin Li
Videos
10:00, History and Memory, IMU UR2: Art, Aesthetics, and Asian America, Stanford University
3:27, Shen Xin: Navigating Belief Systems, Sigg Prize, M+ Museum
9:16, Interview with Johanna Laub – Magical Beach Resort or a Cemetery? Double Feature, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
26:55, Floating Constellation, Spike Magazine, Berlin
10:24, Shen Xin and Mike Nelson, BALTIC Artists’ Award 2017
a learning utterance — writings and newsletters
སྲམ་ Dòbhran — publishing and translating place based stories and texts
Middle Way Cinema — dance of the relative and the ultimate through moving images
AX Archive — a collaborative duo with Ali Van
Vimeo — excerpts and trailers