Crafting resilience through fractured ceramics
At The Green-Wood Cemetery’s new Green-House in New York, artist Jean Shin creates an evocative installation titled Celadon Landscape. This piece, on view until January 17, 2027, comprises nearly two tons of broken Korean ceramic shards from Icheon, South Korea. The installation transforms these fractured remnants into mosaic vessels, highlighting repair as a collective act of care.
Embracing the beauty in imperfection
Jean Shin challenges the idea that perfection is paramount. She believes embracing flaws can reveal an unexpected beauty. In her work, broken ceramic shards serve as a metaphor for diaspora: scattered origins and stretched lineages. The act of gathering these pieces represents remembrance and resilience.
An ongoing journey of creation
Originally conceived in 2015, Celadon Landscape now appears indoors for the first time. By focusing on what is typically discarded, the installation celebrates imperfection. The pale celadon fragments, each a testimonial of labor and memory, are assembled into large vases with unresolved seams. Shin preserves the visible fractures, forming a landscape of collective belonging and persistence toward wholeness.
Jean Shin collaborates with Miotto Mosaics Art Studios, Inc., with the ceramic fragments donated by the City of Icheon. Photographer Etienne Frossard captures the installation’s essence.
Linking art to experience
The work intricately connects broken ceramics with the diasporic experience. The shards symbolize displacement and migration, yet the installation itself becomes a medium for cultural repair. Through a participatory element, visitors write names of loved ones on mulberry paper, adding to a growing scroll—transforming private remembrance into a shared archive of care.
Context and setting: The Green-House
Celadon Landscape inaugurates the Green-House, located within Green-Wood Cemetery’s historical grounds in Brooklyn. The space serves as an entry point for exhibitions and public gatherings focusing on memory, ecology, and collective history. Positioned within this landscape of mourning, the project explores how time infuses absence with meaning.
Community and care through art
Jean Shin’s installation extends beyond ceramics into themes of community and shared memory. Participatory elements allow visitors to contribute personal acts of remembrance, fostering resilience and community through art. This transformative approach underlines repair not as a return to wholeness, but as a meaningful journey of connection.
