Flag Series: Alice Shintani, Prayer Birds, 2024

Art at Americas Society’s Flag Series is pleased to present Alice Shintani’s Prayer Birds, 2024. 

Japanese Brazilian artist Alice Shintani created the flag Prayer Birds, drawing inspiration from the migratory birds that find a temporary home in New York’s Central Park. This flag, part of a larger series, intertwines two different references: the fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, which carry inscriptions on the wind; and the geometric patterns found in tiles designed by artist Athos Bulcão and present in Brazilian modernist public buildings. Of various sizes, shapes, and arrangements, the flags seek to engage the public in an open and playful manner, resonating with the political, social, and cultural contexts of its installation.

The Flag Series presents public artworks on 68th Street, furthering Americas Society’s engagement with the surrounding community in New York and creating new dialogues between artists of the Americas and our audiences.

Prayer Birds will be on view from September 4, 2024 through January 25, 2025.

About the artist

Alice Shintani (São Paulo, Brazil, 1971) lives and works in São Paulo. Granddaughter of Japanese immigrants, Shintani has a degree in computer engineering from the University of Campinas. During the 1990s, she actively worked on early projects to implement the Internet in Brazil. In 2001, she migrated to the visual arts, undertaking extra-academic courses and participating in exhibitions at national public and private institutions.

By 2010, her focus shifted to monitoring the reoccupation of public spaces in the streets of São Paulo. From 2014 to 2016, she completely disconnected from the art system to work full-time as a street vendor selling homemade candies in the avenues and squares of Sao Paulo downtown. She returned to the art circuit in 2017 when she received a residency grant at Delfina Foundation in London, awarded by the SP–Arte fair. Subsequently, she was invited as a visitant artist at Valand Academy in Gothenburg and as resident researcher at Hablar En Arte in Madrid and the century-old Juquery psychiatric hospital in Franco da Rocha. 

Since then, Shintani has conducted artistic proposals exploring the contradictions and overcomings among public, institutional, and market-driven contexts. She was among the participating artists in the 34th Bienal de São Paulo “Though It's Dark, Still I Sing” (2020-2022), as well as its traveling program across Brazilian cities, Santiago (Chile) and Arles (France). In 2024, participated in “100 Years of Brazilian Art”, held at the Biennial Pavilion on the occasion of the G20 international summit. 

Her works are part of institutional collections such as the LUMA Arles Foundation, Sao Paulo Biennial Foundation (Wanda Svevo Archive), Itamaraty Palace (Federal Government of Brazil), Pinacoteca of São Paulo, and Credit Suisse.