Ema Shin
Born:
Japan
Lives in:
Australia
Location
- Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney
Ema Shin is a Japanese-born artist with Korean heritage who lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Her interdisciplinary practice interrogates notions of femininity, sexuality, identity, and womanhood, turning a feminist lens to the erasure of women from historical narratives within her own family, heritage and culture. Absent women are represented in Shin’s works through soft sculpture facsimiles of bodily structures, particularly hearts and reproductive organs. Made from hand-woven tapestry or soft cloth and embellished with beading and needlework, these delicately crafted textile-based works challenge societal norms of gender, art and artistic value. In doing so, they reposition craft as a powerful medium of resistance.
Ema Shin, Hearts of Absent Women (Tree of Family), 2026. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and BEEAH Group with generous support from National Center for Art Research, Japan and assistance from Tapestry Foundation Australia and Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW). Woven by Ema Shin and ATW weaver Saffron Gordon. Courtesy of the artist © Ema Shin and Gallerysmith, Melbourne. Installation view, 25th Biennale of Sydney, Rememory, 2026, Chau Chak Wing Museum. Photograph: David James.
Ema Shin, Hearts of Absent Women (Six Hearts), 2021-2026. Presentation at the 25th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from BEEAH Group and National Center for Art Research, Japan. Courtesy of the artist © Ema Shin and Gallerysmith, Melbourne. Installation view, 25th Biennale of Sydney, Rememory, 2026, Chau Chak Wing Museum. Photograph: David James.
Ema Shin
Born 1977, Japan
Lives and works in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia
Hearts of Absent Women (Six Hearts) 2021 – 2026
cotton thread, silk thread, linen, wool yarn, glass beads, plastic beads, wire, polyester
Courtesy of the artist and Gallerysmith, Melbourne
Hearts of Absent Women (Tree of Family) 2026
wool, cotton, bamboo yarn, acrylic yarn, cotton pearls, glass beads, satin ribbon, aluminium
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and BEEAH Group with generous support from National Center for Art Research, Japan and assistance from Tapestry Foundation Australia and Australian Tapestry Workshop (ATW). Woven by Ema Shin and ATW weaver Saffron Gordon
Courtesy of the artist and Gallerysmith, Melbourne
Ema Shin’s Hearts of Absent Women (Tree of Family) uses thousands of specially dyed fibres, pearlescent beads, glass beads and satin ribbon, combining embellishment with technical rigour. Playing upon ideas of presence and absence, Hearts of Absent Women (Tree of Family) is inspired by a 32-generation family history book, owned and updated by the artist’s grandfather, which recorded only the names of male family members, and of women who gave birth to sons.
Expanding this into a broader meditation on the historic erasure of women’s stories and their contributions to the arts, Hearts of Absent Women centres women’s crafts, typically seen as secondary to domestic pursuits. Using differing scale to literally and symbolically amplify this type of work, the tension between textile softness and precise construction stands testament to the historical and contemporary conditions of womanhood; conditions which demand both grace and profound endurance.