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SAIC CLASS OF 2020 GRADUATE WEBSITE
The Future of Our Plans: SAIC Graduate Class of 2020
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The Future of Our Plans: SAIC Graduate Class of 2020

Yifan Jin


Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Sculpture
yifanjincreate@gmail.com

As the only child growing up without any siblings, my playmates were always ordinary objects. Then I found my little predilection about human beings and non-human beings after I grew up. I love to observe them when they are thinking, interacting, mumbling, or just simply being quiet. After coming to Chicago, I found more interesting relationships between objects and humans.

The themes of my practice include personal expression, self-exploration, emotional research, social problems,  culture differences, the relationship between human and non-human beings, reality and virtuality. I am also exploring different mediums, like sculpture, performance, photography, video, animation, poetry, and so on. Writing is also playing an important role in my practice. I am a human being who has lots of non-human being friends.

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Tomato Practice 1, 2018, Video, 5:27 mins.

Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 1
Tomato Practice 1, 2018, Wood, plastic wrap, tomato costume, and yifan
“I want to be a tomato, the wood tomato wants to be a tomato, but obviously, we are not tomatoes.”
Tomato Practice 3, 2019, Tomato, tomato, and tomato
“everyone wants to be a tomato”
Tomato Practice 3, 2019, Tomato, tomato, and tomato
“everyone wants to be a tomato”
Tomato Practice 3, 2019, Tomato, tomato, and tomato
“everyone wants to be a tomato”
Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 3
Tomato Practice 3, 2019, Tomato, tomato, and tomato
“everyone wants to be a tomato”
Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 4
Tomato Practice 4, 2020, PVC, tomato stem costume, and yifan
“I want to be a part of a tomato, we can become a tomato, when we are together.”
Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 4
Tomato Practice 4
Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 4
Tomato Practice 4
Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 4
Tomato Practice 4
Yifan Jin - Tomato Practice 4
Tomato Practice 4, 2020, PVC, tomato stem costume, and yifan
“I want to be a part of a tomato, we can become a tomato, when we are together.”

In this series of practices, TOMATO PRACTICE, Yifan uses “tomato” as a medium and a material to explore and represent the feelings, emotions, and relationships between individual and group, individual and individual, human and non-human being.

She also uses herself, the other “yifan,” as a material in some of the works. In Tomato Practice 1, she uses the interaction between the object and herself as a tomato to create a metaphor about the relationship between people and the loneliness of being an object and of being a human being. Tomato Practice 3 presents a kind of craziness in calmness. No one can say which side is the crazy and ridiculous one–the fruits who want to be tomatoes or the others. In Tomato Practice 4, Yifan, as a tomato stem, re-experiences the isolation, the barriers between different individuals, and the struggling of eagerness and fear to be a part of a group. A sense of humor and peacefulness hide behind all of these works.





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Chicago, IL 60603
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