What is the human, anyway?
Candice Lin (b. 1979, Concord, Massachusetts) works in Altadena, California. She received her BA in Visual Arts and Art Semiotics from Brown University,in 2001, and MFA in New Genres from San Francisco Art Institute, in 2004. Her practice utilizes installation, drawing, video, and living materials and processes, such as mold, mushrooms, bacteria, fermentation, and stains. Lin has had recent solo exhibitions at the Pitzer Galleries, Claremont, CA; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Art Center, Canada; Ludlow 38, New York; Francois Ghebaly, Los Angeles, as well as the exhibition cycle A Hard White Body at Bétonsalon, Paris; Portikus, Frankfurt; and the Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago. Lin has been included in recent group exhibitions including the 2020 Ashkal Alwan Home Works 8 Forum, 2019 Fiskars Village Art & Design Biennale, 2018 Taipei Biennale; the 2018 Athens Biennale; Made in L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; New Museum, New York; and Sharjah Biennial 2017, Beirut, Lebanon. She is the recipient of several residencies, grants and fellowships, including the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant (2019), The Artists Project Award (2018), Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2017), the Davidoff Art Residency (2018) and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2009).
Fermented Face
Fermented Face was a workshop that used facial massage and a guided meditation to ask questions about bodily borders, ideas of porosity and contamination, and the importance of touch in these contemporary times. Participants were mailed a small vial of artist-made salve with live microorganisms and invited to massage this into their face or another part of their body according to guided instructions. After the meditation, participants journaled and shared aspects of their experience.
