Biography

Katie Chin is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist focused on sculpture. In 2026, her installation “Short Pay, Short Shovel” was featured in the Bronx Museum AIM Biennial and critically acclaimed by Hyperallergic and Forbes; Observer named the exhibition one of the “Most Important Art Biennials of 2026”. In 2025, she exhibited with Frisson Gallery, which received a positive review by Whitehot Magazine. She has also exhibited at Jenkins Johnson, Collar Works, Gallery MC, Midway Gallery, and Root Division. Residencies from Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Vermont Studio Center, Hambidge Center, Stove Works, among others, and grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Joseph Robert Foundation have supported her practice. She received her MFA in Fine Arts (2023) from Parsons School of Design, where she was awarded a Presidential Scholarship.

Artist Statement

My sculpture practice incorporates industrial materials (ceramics, metal, concrete) and found objects to bring attention to quiet gestures that destabilize social hierarchies. The works range from large-scale installations spanning gallery walls to life-sized sculptures modeled after familiar tools and infrastructure, such as wrenches, shopping baskets, and subway turnstiles.

My current research explores stigmergy and sabotage as forms of collective signaling. Stigmergy is a behavior observed in both bees and humans. It describes how individuals leave traces of information that indirectly accumulate into coordinated behavior. In We all understood eventually (2024), a ceramic beehive box sits on a mound of sand, surrounded by honeycomb and computer keyboards. The installation links bee culture and digital communication, using sand as a metaphor for collective intelligence: granular and distributed yet forming a shared mass.

An ongoing series about sabotage highlights examples from early labor movements to contemporary resistance. For example, Short Pay, Short Shovels (2026) references railroad workers who shortened their shovel blades in response to wage cuts. They kept working at full tilt, or appeared to, but each scoop moved less gravel. In my installation, ceramic shovel blades and railroad spikes are combined with twisted and gnarled tree trunks, suggesting bodies adapting under pressure. The installation echoes workers who by reshaping their tools, reshaped the terms of their labor.

Through sculpture and installation, my work reminds us that minor interventions can lead to structural shifts. I am interested in how individual agency shapes collective possibility and ignites broader social imagination.