The Leo Kelly Blacktown Arts Centre
An innovative multi-arts hub in the heart of Blacktown City.
Hear insights and stories from artists and locals who have a connection to Blacktown, and the surrounding areas, in our Digital stories series.
This summer instalment of Digital stories follows Si Yi Shen as she archives one of her parents’ (are Jimmy Shen and Jenny Duan) final prints at K-2 Printing in Seven Hills.
As the world turns more towards the online world, Paperless investigates what we might lose if we lose paper media.
Bio
I am an emerging artist whose practice brings together digital assemblage and moving image to explore diasporic identity in a technologically shaped world. I work across digital collage, moving image and installation, drawing on fragments of images, texts and archival materials to create interconnected visual worlds that reflect notions of belonging and place.
Recent projects include Shifting Perspectives (Bathurst Regional Gallery, 2025), Free Water (Worlding, Platform Arts, 2024), Imagining Terrains (commissioned by Broken Hill City Gallery, 2023), and screened as part of the New Beginnings Festival at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney Festival 2024). Additional works include Auspicious Beasts AR Experience (EDGE Sydenham, 2023), In the Moment (Boronia Grove Community Centre, 2021) and Sending You Love (Casula Powerhouse, 2021). Earlier works include The Eclipse (Willoughby Visual Arts Biennial, 2019) and West Projections Festival (2019).
I have been recognised as a winner of the 2024 Queensland XR Festival (Digital Art) and as a finalist in the Sunshine Coast Art Awards (2025), the Lumen Prize (2024), the Australian XR Festival (2023), and the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize (2023, 2025).
You can find Si Yi Shen on Instagram here
This project is presented by Blacktown Arts and supported by Blacktown City Council.
