Installation view ©Shin Min

The Great Collection is pleased to present Shin Min’s solo exhibition, 《semi: 世美》, opening on September 3.

The exhibition title, ‘semi,’ originates from the common English nickname used by workers in franchise businesses. From this point of departure, "semi" gradually expands to encompass a variety of figures—those who work in anonymous office spaces, nestled between heavy buildings in the city center, wearing false names on their name tags. These are our contemporaries, or perhaps ourselves—countless semis weathering the storms of the world under precarious working conditions.

Concentrated in low-wage, high-intensity service jobs, these individuals evoke a painful and enduring portrait of society, one that remains largely unchanged despite the passage of time. The key new works featured in the exhibition are small human figures: paper cast over clay molds, with each face drawn in graphite or colored pencil. These youthful figures of the era—each with a name inscribed—radiate mischief, cuteness, resistance, or rebellion, embodying vivid individuality and forging powerful collective solidarity in their own terms.

All of us may still be semi, may once have been semi, or may have long forgotten the time we lived as semi. Yet even now, semis may still be among us, quietly enduring. This exhibition seeks to bring visibility to their faint yet enduring presence and to affirm the pure solidarity of all semis passing through this time.

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