List Projects 28: Sophie Friedman-Pappas and TJ Shin

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A makeshift projector sits on a wooden table, accompanied by two matching chairs. Two cords and a strip of material are attached to the device, which projects a faint circle of light onto the back wall. On the right and in the background, two floor-to-ceiling poles with drawings attached and a rectangular, more conventional projected image are visible.

Deltille-d Wall's Necessary Anachronism 2, 2023. Installation view: List Projects 28: Sophie Friedman-Pappas and TJ Shin, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Dario Lasagni

Location
Bakalar Gallery
Featured Artists
Sophie Friedman-Pappas
TJ Shin
Explore all artists who have exhibited at the List in our Artist Index.

In their respective practices, Sophie Friedman-Pappas and TJ Shin work across a variety of media, including drawing, printmaking, expanded cinema, sculpture, and installation.

Both artists share an affinity for featuring and animating organic materials in their work. Shin, for example, has spliced, or “transfected,” mugwort leaves with their own DNA, and Friedman-Pappas has incorporated urine-tanned sheep hide and bird excrement in recent pieces. In past works that query ecological, social, and economic entanglements, both Shin and Friedman-Pappas have prioritized literary methods, developing projects that layer history with fiction and speculation.

In addition to their kaleidoscopic approaches to narrative, the two share an interest in technical devices for representation and vision—from drawing machines to cameraless photography and filmmaking. On view is a moving-image installation by Friedman-Pappas featuring a homemade projector that functions as an inverted camera obscura (Deltille-d Wall’s Necessary Anachronism 2 [2023]) and an experimental film by Shin for which the artist spliced 16mm film stock with segments of Super 8 footage and phytograms, which employ the internal chemistry of plants as a photographic emulsion (Duration [2023]). The two expanded cinema pieces look at sites of unconventional tourism: Shin’s work emerges from their visit to the demilitarized zone spanning the border between North and South Korea, and Friedman-Pappas’s centers on dovecotes-turned-Airbnbs on the Greek island of Tinos. Both sites are indicators of the pressures and contradictions of a postindustrial economy caught between climate disaster, conflict, and the principle of growth. A collaboratively authored series of “travelogues,” presented in an artist-designed display structure, record real and imaginary encounters with these locations.

Sophie Friedman-Pappas (b. 1995, New York) lives and works in Los Angeles. Friedman-Pappas has held a solo exhibition at Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York (organized by Octagon) and has participated in group and two-person exhibitions at Meredith Rosen; New York; Simone Subal, New York; Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, New York; and In Lieu, Los Angeles, among others.

TJ Shin (b. 1993, Seoul) lives and works in Los Angeles. Shin has exhibited at the Queens Museum; New York; Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Arts, Buffalo, NY; Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, New Jersey; Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago; The Bows, Mohkínstsis (Calgary, Alberta); Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, New York; and Knockdown Center, Queens, New York, among others.

List Projects 28: Sophie Friedman-Pappas and TJ Shin is curated by Selby Nimrod, Assistant Curator.

About The Series

This special series of experimental List Projects programming commemorates the tenth anniversary of the series and is comprised of three exhibitions in the Bakalar Gallery. Each presentation will pair two artists who share a history of conversation and foster their continued collaboration through a joint commission. A closing program featuring all six artists will round out the series, offering an opportunity for the artists to reflect on what it means for institutions to prioritize conversation and collaboration in their exhibition spaces.

Sponsors

Exhibitions at the List Center are made possible with the support of Fotene & Tom Coté, Audrey & James Foster, Idee German Schoenheimer, Joyce Linde, Cynthia & John Reed, and Sara-Ann & Robert Sanders. This exhibition is also supported by generous donors to the 2023 McDermott Award Gala, hosted by the Council for the Arts at MIT.

General operating support is provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the Council for the Arts at MIT; Philip S. Khoury, Vice Provost at MIT; the MIT School of Architecture + Planning; the Mass Cultural Council; and many generous individual donors. In-kind media sponsorship provided by 90.9 WBUR. The Advisory Committee Members of the List Visual Arts Center are gratefully acknowledged.  

Images

Four metal poles extend from floor to ceiling in a gallery. Two or three framed works on paper with images and text are attached to each one. Some are drawings of buildings and other objects; others are cameraless photographs showing outlines of plants. The frames appear to be able to rotate around the poles.
A thick wall with text on it separates a gallery into two sections. The edge of a wooden chair peeks out from behind its left side. On either side, metal poles extend from floor to ceiling. Framed works on paper with images and text are attached to each pole. The frames appear to be able to rotate around the poles.
Five metal poles extend from floor to ceiling in a gallery. Two or three framed works on paper are attached to each one, including outlines of plants, drawings of plants, more abstract compositions, and lines of text. In the background on the left, a projector on a table casts an abstract light pattern across the wall, accompanied by two chairs.
On the right, a film is projected onto a pull-down screen against a wall. An image of a car driving on a curved road is overlaid with another smaller, less discernible image with a sprocket hole. On the left, two metal poles extend from floor to ceiling, each with three framed works of paper attached. The two drawings closest to the camera show the facade of a multi-story building and a more abstract composition with squiggly circles.
Three metal poles extend from floor to ceiling in a gallery. Two or three framed works on paper with layered compositions are attached to each one. The frames appear to be able to rotate around the poles. In the background on the left, a projector on a table casts an abstract light pattern across the wall, accompanied by two chairs.
Five metal poles extend from floor to ceiling, each with three framed works of paper attached. The two drawings closest to the camera show the pale impression of plants against mauve backgrounds, produced through cameraless photography. In the background, a film is projected onto the wall; the frame shown is green and is layered with a second smaller image with a sprocket hole.
A makeshift projector sits on a wooden table, accompanied by two matching chairs. Two cords and a strip of material are attached to the device, which projects a faint circle of light onto the back wall. On the right and in the background, two floor-to-ceiling poles with drawings attached and a rectangular, more conventional projected image are visible.
A boxy makeshift projector sits on a wooden table; it is crudely constructed with materials like cardboard and duct tape. Three cords are attached to its back, and a strip of semi-transparent material runs through the device, like a film strip would. A circle of light with a blurry strip of text is projected through the projector’s cylindrical “lens.” A more abstract pattern of light rays is also thrown across an adjacent wall.
A layered film is projected onto a small pull-down screen on a wall. The projected image is overlaid with another smaller image with a sprocket hole, creating an effect of opacity and doubling. Both images appear to depict a lush landscape with greenery in the foreground and the outline of a mountain in the background.
Three metal poles extend from floor to ceiling. Two or three framed works on paper are attached to each one. Nearest to the camera, one work appears to be a printed document with some lines redacted; another is a drawing with a geometric layout resembling an architectural plan. The frames appear to be able to rotate around the poles.

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List Projects 28: Sophie Friedman-Pappas and TJ Shin

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