Meekyoung Shin

The Johnson Atelier played a crucial role in bringing Shin’s work to life. A 760-square-foot studio space equipped with light, water, compressed air, and air conditioning was prepared and rented to the museum for the 3.5-month duration of the project, allowing the artist to hand-carve the blocks on campus. The artist was also provided with on-campus housing in an apartment.

When the artist arrived, the Atelier worked with her to source the proper tools and equipment needed for this particular type of soap. Two full-time staff members assisted with the carving, and five part-time carving assistants were hired and scheduled for the project. Additionally, a group of about 10 volunteers were organized to unwrap and store 10 pallets of individually wrapped Neutrogena bars—40,000 in total—donated by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Plastic barrels were sourced to keep the unwrapped soap bars clean until the melting process began.

Next, a massive 6 x 4 x 2-foot custom steel mold was designed and fabricated for producing the large soap blocks the artist would hand-carve. Steel armatures and bases were designed to fit inside, and the soap bars were melted directly into the mold. Once each soap block had properly hardened, the mold was removed, leaving the armature with the base on skids attached to the soap block. This process was repeated three times.

The Philadelphia Museum delivered three small 36-inch plaster models of John Gregor Pediment to the Johnson Atelier for the artist’s reference. The Atelier scanned the models, digitally rescaled them, and produced eight full-sized printed views of each of the three figures for the artist to use as schematics and to take measurements for the hand-sculpting process. Shin and her team spent 10 weeks meticulously sculpting the full-size figures by hand, inch by inch.

The Johnson Atelier documented all stages of the work for the Philadelphia Museum of Art with photographs and videos.