On Friday, May 16th, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston unveiled Into the Forest, a large-scale mural installation created by Taiwanese American Fine Artist and Arts Educator Szu-Chieh Yun (雲思婕), in collaboration with nearly 200 local youth. The mural — a vibrant landscape alive with curiosity, chaos, and the texture of rushing water and flowing trees — was the culmination of the Museum’s Community Arts Initiative, a program that invites young people to co-create with a professional artist and see their imagination immortalized on the Museum’s walls.
As I stepped into the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art with my mom, aunt, and younger sister, I was immediately enveloped by not just the visual spectacle, but by the exuberance in the air — the voices of young artists reverberating through the space, pointing proudly to their work. Then I saw the forest.
A sprawling kaleidoscope of painted trees, creatures, shadows, and light stretched across the gallery wall. It was as if someone had cracked open a dream. But for my family and me, this moment held another kind of wonder: this forest was imagined and brought to life by my older sister, Szu (pronounced “Sue”). Seeing her name decaled on the wall of a major museum felt surreal — an extraordinary moment I am still processing.
To understand the vision behind Into the Forest, I sat down with my sister for an interview with TaiwaneseAmerican.org.
M: How did you come up with this idea for your residency at the MFA?
S: After I read about the project scope, I visited the museum to see the space. I researched and talked to other artists who have done the project before and learned that [the Museum] hadn’t done a landscape yet. There’s a component to this project that it has to connect to the Museum’s collection, and the Museum has a ton of landscape paintings. And because this piece would be displayed on a giant wall, it read to me as a mural — like you’re stepping outside.
M: Walk us through your process.
S: So, it involved four different sessions with the students — two teaching sessions that included drawing from imagination and experimentation, and two other sessions that incorporated the Museum’s collection.
This project was 70% teaching and lesson planning and organizing. The 30% was the execution of the final mural. I looked at all of the kids’ work and I found these things that made your heart skip a beat — like, ‘whoa, what is that?’
Kids’ art has a certain, specific energy, right? And I didn’t want to cover that. That was what I wanted to highlight. It’s this energy, or this untethered or very immediate response of ‘I want to make a thing.’ So in their paintings and in their drawings — all this wild stuff they made — I just put it in there.
And the Museum was actually very open — they were like, ‘whatever they made, put it in there!’ There were things that were a little bit dark. There were things in the forest that were a bit scary, and some people may be like, ‘oh, if it’s kids’ work, you have to stay away from certain subject matters.’ But because this component of the project has to do with imaginary drawing or drawing from imagination, I wanted to stick to that — the fidelity of what the kids created.
And in a way, as it is composed, it tells a story. Visually, I leaned into elements like colors, shapes, textures — things that connect one another. I wanted to connect the kids’ work in a way that felt like you could move your eye throughout the whole mural.
M: I think you definitely captured the students’ imagination and honored the way they see and experience the world. When I look deeper into the mural, or rather, the forest, though, there’s a theme of fear that emerges. Can you talk a bit more about that?
S: Yeah, that was the surprising thing. So, you know, the kids made trees, waterfalls, and bunnies, and then they made these very abstract images too. They were kind of like black holes almost, or they were these dark cave-like spaces.
The kids also saw bears, and these bears found them in the forest. There was also this giant eye looking at the forest from above, and it saw everything.
So I think the theme of fear came up — maybe it correlates with what I’m experiencing as an adult with what’s happening now. And there was a good amount of those images — it almost feels like a fear of the unknown. Like there’s a darker aspect to the forest, and the project, Into the Forest, has a connotation to life and life’s journey. There’s the way you perceive your journey in the forest that I felt was really deep, and the kids are capable of that — being aware of things that they don’t know yet.
So going back to your question, I wanted to explore what’s on the other side of fear and how can someone overcome fear. And with this mural, I think we did that. We made room to imagine a pathway forward, right?
What the students did was that they imagined their own forest, and they pulled from what they saw in their mind, and they brought it into the real world.
A way to overcome fear is to make room to imagine a way forward, and on the other side of fear is discovery. So if you can withstand the fear, if you can endure it — and you know, that never goes away, you always have these feelings of fear — there is something worthy on the other side of this.
M: I love that discovery is on the other side of fear.
S: Right! It’s like you’ve transformed. You’ve come to a new place. Fear isn’t the only thing in the forest.
M: What’s been the most rewarding part of this experience?
S: It was very rewarding to see the kids look at their work. I didn’t put them on the spot by telling them it’s going into the Museum. When they saw [their work] in the Museum, they were like, ‘I just drew a dog and now it’s huge. What!’ And that was really fun to see.
You know, I hope other kids can see themselves in the work all these students made. It’s not just like, ‘hey, I made a thing that’s in the Museum, you know, gold star for me,’ it’s more like, ‘oh, wait, my work can have an impact in this different, bigger way. I made something that other kids could relate to.’
M: You also created another piece, Untitled, that’s a part of this exhibition. Tell us more about that.
S: I made that piece in response to the kids’ work. After the mural was completed, I went back to the question: ‘What is an aesthetic or what does it look like to overcome fear?’ I thought of how I would explore — or how a child explores.
For example, if you saw a mound or a hill of ants, at first, you’re like ‘ugh!’ but it’s still mesmerizing in a way. Like, you want to look at it, but it’s still a little bit creepy to see all those bugs, and they’re kind of in their own world.
So I saw an orb of bugs and created that. The bugs are made out of paint and shiny components like glass beads. At first, when you first look at it, it’s very scary, but if you don’t look away from it and you continue to look at this image, eventually these details kind of fade into the background of the bugs, and what remains are the glistening and the shine from the beads.
This orb and the beads look like stars — discovery. I feel like this is tied to not only what the kids made, but also to the curatorial selection of parts of the Museum.
M: Totally. I think you did such a thoughtful job in creating these two pieces to be in dialogue with each other, while inviting us to reflect deeper on our own journeys. So, what’s on the other side for you? What comes after this?
S: Thanks, Mu Mu. I have a solo show at The Trustman Art Gallery at Simmons University in the fall, and I’ll keep you updated on when the date is finalized. I’m going to continue to work on my series Rage and Ecstasy. It does have to do with themes of power and release — what it means to be on the other side. It’s something I’m still discovering throughout the process of making art.
M: How can people support you?
S: Follow me on Instagram is one way — to know when the upcoming shows are — and I would love to do more projects like this one with the MFA, where I’m able to use this range of skill sets that I have and be paid well for it.
M: Yeah, that’s real.
S: And I hope the right place finds my work.
M: It will, Szuzy.
It wasn’t lost on me that this was a conversation between sisters. After the interview, I couldn’t help but picture us as children again: in Taiwan, playing witch and making potions; in America finding our way in a new country. Though Szu is only two years older than me, she has always been the quintessential big sister — for both our younger sister, Jih-Chieh (雲日婕), and me. She’s braved the wilderness of being the eldest: standing up to bullies when we first immigrated to the U.S., navigating college applications and scholarship essays, and even confronting the complexity of seeing our parents as people, not just caregivers — a rite of passage familiar to many children of immigrants. Just as she hopes the next generation of artists will feel empowered by the paths paved through this mural, she’s done that for me. Her footsteps have made my own journey more open, more daring, and far less scary.
Follow Szu on Instagram: @yunszuchieh
Learn more about Szu’s work: www.szuyun.com
Contact Szu for projects, collaborations, and/or commissions: szuchieh.yun@gmail.com
This piece was written by Mu-Chieh Yun (雲木婕), strategist and writer behind Heirloom Futures. Follow her on Instagram: @spaghettiyun.
Into The Forest is available for viewing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, May 16–October 26, 2025.
Szu-Chieh Yun is a Taiwanese American artist based in Boston, MA. She received her MFA from University of Arts London at Wimbledon College of Arts 2016 and her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2011, during which she completed a semester abroad in the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S. and internationally. Szu-Chieh is an experienced visual arts educator who has worked extensively with low-income students in Boston as a mentor and internationally as an art teacher in Shanghai. She attended Studios at Mass MoCA in 2022 and is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
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