Flint Fit

Mel Chin, American

Tracy Reese, American

Flint Fit, 2018

The plastic bottles water that flint residents are forced to drink due to their unsafe drinking water has become a piece of the community landscape. Mel Chin, an artist from Houston Texas, decided that these plastic water bottles shouldn’t create a new environmental hazard; they should go toward something beautiful. Chin worked with residents and community organizers in Flint to collect 90,000 empty plastic water bottles over six weeks. These bottles were converted into a yarn like fabric through a process where they are broken down, melted, turned into microchips and then became fabric. The actual designs were created by New York fashion designer and Michigan native Tracy Reese. Chin and Reese includes Flint’s manufacturing history within the work of art by using styles from the 1940s when General Motors factory was present in the town. This exhibition is also supposed to signify the resiliency of the people of Flint. Label by Isabel Schreur

Unmoored

Mel Chin, American, born 1951

Unmoored, 2018

In Mel Chin’s Unmoored, New York City’s Times Square is seen from rising tides with ships floating above and plankton and other microscopic life swimming about. Through virtual reality, individuals get a sense for what New York City would look like if ice continues to melt from the use of fossil fuels. Mel Chin found that studies have revealed that the use of technology has decreased people’s empathy. In change, Mel Chin wanted this work of art to give empathy through technology instead of taking it away. Overall, the goal of this work is to have more people become aware of the urgency of climate change and its deeply devastating impacts through a method not normally known for doing so. Label by Callie Sties

Revival Field plant and field Study (aka Carulescens Cross)

Mel Chin, American, born 1951

Revival Field plant and field Study (aka Carulescens Cross), 2015

In his ongoing project of Revival Field, Mel Chin made a holistic approach to create an environmental solution to transform industrial waste into sustainable artwork, by utilizing specific plants to extract heavy metals from contaminated soil. Before the project started in 1991, the soil at a Superfund site in Saint Paul, Minnesota was loaded with cadmium and other toxins. With two years of what he calls “a green remedy,” Chin was able to absorb most of the heavy metals into the plant’s stems and leaves, with an economically feasible and environmentally sustainable methods. Label by Yifei He