Please join us for an artist talk by Mel Chin (born 1951, Houston, TX), who employs a wide range of approaches, from unique, idiosyncratic objects to complex operations that require multidisciplinary collaboration. Pairing the poetic with the pragmatic, Chin creates work that is notably without a signature style to promote unpredictable aesthetics, taking mutable strategies that intersect art, science, and activism.

His talk will touch on two works on view in the exhibition Dwelling at the Cantor: Revival Field Diorama (2015), which stems from a 1990 project that pioneered the field of green remediation through the use of plants to remove toxic heavy metals from soil; and Fan Club (1994), which commemorates the tenth anniversary of Vincent Chin’s death through a baseball bat that has been transformed into a blood-stained fan, entangling national identity and racial violence.

In 2017, Chin founded S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio to enlarge the dialogue and realize sustained engagements with community and environment. His nationwide initiative, Fundred, gave tangible form and political value to the voices of 500,000 individuals opposing the conditions that give rise to childhood lead-poisoning. His forty-year-survey exhibition at the Queens Museum was named by Hyperallergic as the best art exhibition of 2018. Chin is the recipient of many awards, grants, and honorary degrees, including the MacArthur Fellowship and election into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

All public programs at the Cantor Arts Center are always free! Space for this program is limited; advance registration is recommended. Those who have registered will have priority seating.

Image: Top: Mel Chin (American, born in 1951). Fan Club, 1994. Ash wood, blood on Chinese silk, ink on paper. Cantor Arts Center Collection, Robert E. and Mary B. P. Gross Fund in support of the Asian American Art Initiative, 2025.6 / Bottom Left: Mel Chin headshot, photo credit: Miriam Heads / Bottom Right: Pool of Light, 2024. Photo credit: Alex Marks

RSVP here.

________

Parking

Free visitor parking is available along Lomita Drive as well as on the first floor of the Roth Way Garage Structure, located at the corner of Campus Drive West and Roth Way at 345 Campus Drive, Stanford, CA 94305. From the Palo Alto Caltrain station, the Cantor Arts Center is about a 20-minute walk or the free Marguerite shuttle will bring you to campus via the Y or X lines.

Disability parking is located along Lomita Drive near the main entrance of the Cantor Arts Center. Additional disability parking is located on Museum Way and in Parking Structure 1 (Roth Way & Campus Drive). Please click here to view the disability parking and access points.

Accessibility Information or Requests

Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is committed to ensuring our programs are accessible to everyone. To request access information and/or accommodations for this event, please complete this form at least one week prior to the event: museum.stanford.edu/access.

For questions, please contact disability.access@stanford.edu or Kwang-Mi Ro, kwangmi8@stanford.edu, (650) 723-3469.

Connect with the Cantor Arts Center! Subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on Instagram.

Photo: Miriam Heads