Bio

Mel Chin was born in Houston, Texas and is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that enlist science as an aesthetic component to developing complex ideas. He created and implemented Revival Field (1990), a project that was a pioneer in the field of “green remediation,” the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. From 1995-1998 he formed the collective the GALA Committee that produced In the Name of the Place a public art project conducted on American prime-time television. Chin is one of the artists featured in the first year of the ongoing PBS Series Art of the 21st Century. His proposal for a New World Trade Center was part of the American representation at the 2002 Venice Biennale of Architecture. In 2017 his film, 9-11/9-11, won the Pedro Sienna Award for Animation in Chile. His ongoing Fundred Project addresses childhood lead-poisoning through art-making. In 2017 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 and concurrently he had a 40-year-survey exhibition at the Queens Museum, NYC, that Hyperallergic, the online arts magazine, named the best art exhibition of 2018. He is the recipient of many awards, grants, and honorary degrees, including the MacArthur Fellowship, 2019, and election to the The American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2021.