Jin-me Yoon is a Korean-born, Vancouver-based artist living and learning from her host nations on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Since the early ’90s, she has utilized photography, video, performance, and installation to situate her personal experience of migration in relation to unfolding historical, political, and ecological conditions. Often collaborating with her son, the sound artist and musician Hanum Yoon-Henderson, the sonic world of listening has increasingly become an important component of her experimental and improvisational methodologies.
Yoon continues to explore the entangled relations of tourism, militarism, and colonialism that have long informed the varied forms traversing the trajectory of her practice. Through photography, cinematography, and the performative gestures of family, friends, and community members as well as her own image, Yoon reconnects repressed pasts with damaged presents, creating the conditions for different futures. Staging her work in charged landscapes, Yoon finds specific points of reference across multiple geopolitical contexts. In so doing, she brings worlds together, affirming the value of difference.
Over the last three decades, her work has been presented nationally and internationally in hundreds of exhibitions, and she has mentored many students over the years while teaching at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Recent recognition includes: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2018), Scotiabank Photography Award (2022), Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2025), and the inaugural Kim Byungjong Art Award in Korea (2025). Recent monographs include: Jin-me Yoon (SPA/Steidl), About Time (Vancouver Art Gallery/Hirmer), and Jin-me Yoon: Life & Work (Art Canada Institute).
