The SECC is proud to showcase and highlight works of Socially Engaged Craft. Today, we’d like to highlight the work of Aletheia Hyun-Jin Shin, a community Korean artist. This project was a collaboration with a Korean senior community addresses issues of history, sustenance, and the complex narratives of the Korean community in Baltimore.

The Onngi Project is a series of traditional Korean vessels created in collaboration with a Korean senior community in Baltimore. As Onngi is a significant vessel form Koreans used for over 5000 years to store everyday foods. The Onngi in this project serves as a metaphor for the history and wisdom in the untold story of Korean community in Baltimore.

Through the Onngi Project, Korean Seniors from the Greenmount Senior Center came together to create artworks that will educate and raise awareness of the longstanding, yet untold presences of the Korean community in Baltimore. Together we explore our past and present journey living as Koreans in America. Wrestling in the dual consciousness of being both a Korean and becoming part of the palate of the United States, we set on a journey, exploring our stories that will ground and connect us to the world that we live in.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Aletheia Hyun-Jin Shin is a Korean community artist. Her life experience growing up as a third culture kid, born in Canada, and raised in US and Korea, informs her interest in transnational, inter-cultural art making based in social practice

Recently completing her Master in Fine Arts degree in Community Arts from Maryland Institute College of Arts, she continues to practice incorporating the methodology of community organizing and storytelling in her artistic praxis, focusing on building local leadership through creative platforms that promote solidarity and community voices. Collaborating as an artistic asset in various Korean communities, Aletheia seeks to facilitate the creation of artistic narrative projects as a vehicle to nurture culture, build community, and bring awareness to the long standing Korean community in Baltimore.