Passage III

Celadon Remnants

[1] At the Broadway Station of the Long Island Rail Road in Flushing, Queens, commuters ponder a mural spanning over three hundred square feet on the station’s south wall. [2] But as they come closer, commuters notice the silhouettes are also mosaics, constructed entirely of ceramic shards. [3] From afar, the mural appears as a series of aquamarine, vase-shaped silhouettes against a white tile background. (32)

The mural, titled Celadon Remnants, is artist Jean Shin’s homage on the Korean American community in Flushing. When she was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City to spawn a site-specific artwork, visually representing her dual identity was a means sought by Shin as an American and a Korean. She chose to use traditional celadon pottery, albeit in new way.

Celadon is a ceramic ware named for its’ aquamarine glaze. Originally from China, celadon was further developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries in Korea, in which inlaid designs and decorative elements were added. Over the centuries, celadon became a cultural treasure in Korea. Today, South Korean ceramicists will accept nothing less than perfection in creating their art. In fact, if the ceramicist deems a piece imperfect, he or she will often scrap it entirely.

Shin decided that these scraps, or shards, would be an ideal medium for her mural. In 2008, she contacted ceramicists in the South Korean city of Icheon for celadon shards and arranged to be shipped to Queens. The ceramicists sent Shin over six thousand shards. Using the shards—many of whose are adorned with alphabetic symbols and assorted patterns—Shin constructed her mural.

For Shin, the shards themselves took on significance: they represented her feeling of being broken off or “fractured” from their birthplace of Seoul, South Korea. In Queens, Shin’s use of the fragments to construct an artwork that celebrated a Korean tradition. The result is sublime. The silhouettes merge Shin’s past and present, creating an exquisite meditation on Korean American identity.