China Institute and Asia Art Archive in America brought together Asian and Asian Diasporic artists Bing Lee, Jean Shin, Saya Woolfalk, and Parker Fay (who will represent Ming Fay) to share the stories behind their own subway commission projects while addressing questions around the possibilities, promise, and practicalities of public art. The conversation was moderated by Bridget Donlon, Curator and Project Manager at MTA Art & Design.

NYC’s subway stations have long been sites of large scale commissions, viewed on a daily basis by hundreds of thousands of city residents, commuters, and visitors. These artworks, commissioned by MTA Art & Design, are often linked to their location’s history, architecture, and/ or community context. 

Thank you for joining us on November 4th for a deep dive into four select commissions and what they can teach us about shared commitment to community, artistic innovation, and site-specific storytelling. This program was in conversation with Offering the Spiritual: A Selection Ming Fay’s Public Art Projects, an archival display featured in the current exhibition Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation. This display, focusing on select NYC-based public artworks by Ming Fay, is organized by Asia Art Archive in America.

Participant bios:

Bing Lee was born in China and grew up in Hong Kong. He received his BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design and continued his graduate studies at Syracuse University. Currently, he is living and working in New York City and Shanghai. 

Lee established the Bing Lee Studio in 1990, and has been commissioned to design and install site-specific public art projects, including the Canal Street Subway Station in New York, the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee, Kowloon Tong Station in Hong Kong, Townsend Harris High School, Public School 88 & Public School 242 public schools in New York. He is a founding member of Tomato Grey, Godzilla-Asian American Arts Network, Epoxy Art Group in New York, and Visual Art Society in Hong Kong.

Known for her monumental public sculptures, artist Jean Shin transforms discarded objects into powerful installations that examine our relationship with consumption, collective identity, and community engagement. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the U.S., Shin has earned international recognition through numerous prestigious commissions including Elevated (2017), large-scale glass mosaics at Manhattan’s 63rd Street–Lexington Avenue M.T.A subway station reimagining cast-iron facades and historic ornamentation, and Celadon Remnants (2008) at Long Island Rail Road’s Broadway Station in Flushing, Queens, translating Korean pottery shards into glass designs. 

Working from studios in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley, Shin has exhibited extensively at over 150 major institutions. Her solo exhibitions include The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Saya Woolfalk (Japan, 1979) is a New York based artist who uses science fiction and fantasy to re-imagine the world in multiple dimensions. With the multi-year projects No Place, The Empathics, and ChimaTEK, Woolfalk has created the world of the Empathics, a fictional race of women who are able to alter their genetic make-up and fuse with plants. With each body of work, Woolfalk continues to build the narrative of these women’s lives, and questions the utopian possibilities of cultural hybridity. 

She has exhibited at museums, galleries, and alternative spaces throughout Asia, Europe and the United States including solo exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2014); SCAD Museum, Savannah, GA (2016); Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY (2016); Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE (2016); the Mead Museum of Art, Amherst, MA (2017) and group shows at the Studio Museum in Harlem; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among many others.

Parker Tao Fay is the Director of Ming Fay Studio, where he manages all aspects of the artist’s studio and legacy, including the studio space, archive, exhibitions and the publishing of the Ming Fay artist monograph Journey into Nature. He has played a key role in numerous exhibitions featuring Ming Fay’s art at institutions such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In addition to his work with the studio, he is an independent strategic consultant working across the international development, nonprofit, and corporate sectors.

Bridget Donlon is a curator and project manager at MTA Arts & Design. She has shepherded dozens of permanent public artworks for New York City Transit, Metro-North Railroad, and Long Island Rail Road; most recent sites include the Park Avenue Viaduct at East 116^th Street; the 14^th Street/6^th & 7^th Avenue station complex; and Grand Central Madison. She also manages temporary Photography and Digital Art projects at sites throughout the MTA subway system. She has previously held positions at Dieu Donné artist workspace, Fabric Workshop & Museum, Tate Modern, and Galerie Lelong.

AAAinA’s general programming and operations are funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Vilcek Foundation, and other foundations and individuals.