Projects & Collaborations — Anastasia Shi
Samsonite
Home Within
Year
2026
Home Within (Spanish: El hogar que llevo) reimagines the suitcase as an intimate and essential space. The work transforms an object designed for movement into a sensitive surface where memory, identity, and experience are inscribed.
Traditionally associated with travel, the suitcase is presented here as a portable home: a container not only of belongings, but of emotions and memories that accompany each transition. The painted intervention reveals layers of use, traces of time, and personal experience, turning the suitcase into an extension of the body and of life in motion.
This collaboration proposes a dialogue between art, design, and everyday life, inviting the viewer to reflect on the notion of home as something that can be carried within, even as everything remains in constant change.
Proyecto Sanación
Part of “Nopalera en el Corazón,” 2026
Presented within the public art initiative Nopalera en el Corazón by the Secretary of Culture of Mexico City at the Zócalo, Proyecto Sanación by Anastasia Shi unfolds as an intimate dialogue between biography, territory, and collective consciousness.
Created during a period of personal separation, the work emerges from a process in which art becomes a form of deep healing. The nopal—an ancestral symbol of resilience and survival—is reimagined as a living body that feels, remembers, and regenerates. Its dual nature—protective yet nourishing—mirrors the human experience of grief, proposing resilience not as hardness, but as a sensitive strength that allows pain to be felt and transformed.
The sculptural intervention reveals emotional layers and traces of inner repair, positioning the work as a gesture of collective healing. On its reverse, a painted blue hand accompanied by the phrase “If you heal, I heal” invites viewers into a quiet, ritual act—activating the piece as a shared space of care, connection, and transformation.
Ministry of Culture, Mexico
Nopalera en el corazón
Year
2026
Ricardo Reyes + MAGDA + Fundación Origen + Voit Mexico
A lot of balls
Year
2026
…Is in the Air?
Created in the context of the FIFA World Cup 2026, co-hosted by Mexico, …Is in the Air? transforms the football into a vessel of invisible intensities—a living archive of emotions in motion.
As players move across the field, what circulates is not only strategy or skill, but stored emotional states: anxiety before a decisive pass, heartbreak from private life, euphoria, rage, fear. These emotions do not disappear; they accumulate and travel through the air with every touch.
Shi suggests that the stadium is charged long before the opening whistle. The ball absorbs what cannot be publicly expressed—holding tension and desire, fragility and force—and revealing football as a deeply human ritual where vulnerability and power coexist.
The question mark in the title is key: what is in the air—victory, pressure, collective memory, or the silent emotional labor of those performing before millions?
By monumentalizing the ball as an emotional reservoir, Anastasia Shi reframes the global spectacle as an intimate psychological landscape, where the most decisive battles remain unseen.
Ministry of Culture, Mexico
Ajolote en el corazón
Year
2026
Self-Portrait
In this Self-Portrait, Anastasia Shi approaches the ajolote not simply as a subject, but as a mirror.
Fascinated by its extraordinary capacity for regeneration and survival, Shi recognizes in the ajolote a reflection of her own experience: an identity continuously shaped by movement, adaptation, rupture, and renewal. Having built her life and artistic practice across different countries and cultures, the artist understands transformation not as a singular event, but as an ongoing state of being.
By merging her own image with that of the ajolote, Shi creates a symbolic self-portrait in which the boundaries between human and creature begin to dissolve. Vulnerability and resilience coexist; what appears delicate carries an extraordinary capacity to endure.
The work becomes a meditation on the selves we shed, preserve, and regenerate throughout our lives—and on the possibility that resilience is not about remaining unchanged, but about learning how to become again and again.
Ellas (Vera, Nadezhda & Lyubov)
Ellas is a monumental reflection on the essential forces that sustain human life. Inspired by the Slavic names Vera, Nadezhda, and Lyubov—meaning Faith, Hope, and Love—the three murals transform these virtues into feminine presences that embody the emotional and spiritual foundations of the human experience.
At the center stands Love, conceived as a source of light and vital energy. Faith and Hope direct their gaze and strength toward her, forming a symbolic constellation that speaks to the interconnected power of these three virtues. Together, they suggest that love, faith, and hope are forces capable of guiding us through adversity, inspiring resilience, and moving mountains.
All three figures wear glasses that partially conceal their eyes. This gesture intentionally removes specific identity markers, allowing the women to transcend individuality and represent the diversity of humanity. Their unseen gaze invites viewers to recognize themselves within the work, regardless of background, culture, or experience.
Through symbolism and presence, Ellas celebrates love, faith, and hope not as abstract ideals, but as living forces that connect us and illuminate the path forward.
MAGDA
Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov
Year
2026
Rapture is a bold, emotionally charged performance that delves into the tension between our true selves and the expectations imposed upon us by society.
Unfolding within a 180-degree projection space, Rapture brings together four international artists, each with a distinct voice: music, live art, performance, and visual storytelling. Together, they lead the audience through a raw, visceral experience that reconnects us with something instinctive and real.
The story of Rapture was born from the idea of portraying the voices inside our heads that conspire against authenticity and inner growth. Its proper formation emerged from the gathering of personal experiences, alongside journal entries and daily observations from the artists, which ultimately converged into a script. The music was developed in parallel with the writing, accompanied by the recording of voices, as well as the research and creation of the visual projections.
This singular performance invites reflection on the roles shaped by culture, identity, and religion. As it unfolds, it transforms into a contemporary ritual: a moment to shed what has been imposed and return to one’s own truth.
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Rapture + Liseth Bittar + Macarena Palazuelos + Isra Bistrain
Year
2024-2026