Kinship Across Time: Heesoo Kwon & Livien Yin

Join artists Heesoo Kwon and Livien Yin for an intimate conversation about their friendship and the continuous cycle of “contagious inspiration” that each offers the other. Both Kwon and Yin employ inventive strategies that engage with the fictional and speculative in order to bridge and repair the past, present, and future. Each artist will share insight into their works on view at the Cantor Arts Center—Kwon in Spirit House, and Yin in Livien Yin: Thirsty—and discuss their varied approaches to community-building through personal and historical archives.

This program is organized as part of the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) in conjunction with the exhibitions Livien Yin: Thirsty and Spirit House.

Livien Yin: Thirsty is the first museum solo exhibition of the work of Brooklyn-based artist Livien Yin, a 2019 Stanford MFA, on view at the Cantor Arts Center through February 2, 2025. In their paintings, Yin often casts their friends as models, collapsing the distance between the past and present to create new connective threads between Asian Americans across generations.

Spirit House investigates how contemporary artists of Asian descent challenge the boundary between life and death through art. A thematic exploration of the work of thirty-three Asian American and Asian diasporic artists, Spirit House asks the question, what does it mean to speak to ghosts, inhabit haunted spaces, be reincarnated, or enter different dimensions?

All public programs at the Cantor Arts Center are always free! Space for this program is limited; advance registration is recommended. Those who have registered will have priority for seating.

Accessibility Information or Requests
Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is committed to ensuring our programs are accessible to everyone. To request access information and/or accommodations for this event, please complete this form at least one week prior to the event: museum.stanford.edu/access.
For questions, please contact disability.access [at] stanford.edu (disability[dot]access[at]stanford[dot]edu) or Kwang-Mi Ro, kwangmi8 [at] stanford.edu (kwangmi8[at]stanford[dot]edu), (650) 723-3469.
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Image: Photograph by Livien Yin featuring artists Livien Yin (left) and Heesoo Kwon (right).