All Projects

2026 State of the Art Prize, Colorado

2026 State of the Art Prize, Colorado

Yumi Janairo Roth

Yumi Janairo Roth

Yumi Janairo Roth’s research-based practice includes projects built around social engagement and site-specific installation and explores ideas around labor, creative exchange, and cultural translation.

Discipline:

Installation, Sculpture, Socially-Engaged Visual Art, Visual Arts

Award Year:

2026

Spinner is Evan James. Drawing on a background in anthropological and archaeological research, Yumi Roth uses her art practice to join together disparate communities in situations that bring attention to the value we place on different aspects of everyday material culture. “Spinners take great pride in their ability and athleticism,” she says, “yet are vilified and outlawed for distracting drivers, ‘cheapening’ municipalities, and accepting seemingly low-skill jobs.” For Spin (after Sol LeWitt), she set out to challenge those assumptions by working with a group of spinners to replace the advertising slogans on their signs with maxims from LeWitt’s genre-defining 1968 text, Sentences on Conceptual Art. Spinning the signs on street corners, they surprised passers-by with LeWitt’s ideas about the importance of irrational judgements and logical mysticism. “In Spin, spinners see, read, and relate to LeWitt’s sentences,” Roth explains. “They lay claim to some conceptual art pronouncements that enable them to understand and interpret contemporary art on their own terms and in their own spaces. April 28, 2021 (Josh Hawkins/UNLV Photo Services)

About Yumi Janairo Roth

Boulder, CO

Yumi Janairo Roth Yumi Janairo Roth’s research-based practice includes projects built around social engagement and site-specific installation. Since 2021, she has collaborated with Emmanuel David on their project, We Are Coming , which explores the forgotten history of the Filipino Rough Riders who performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Their work has appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art-Denver, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Autry Museum of the American West. Roth’s past projects have focused on the Filipino diaspora and have involved working with Manila-based artists and call center agents, jeepney drivers, and artisans and explored themes of labor, creative exchange, and cultural translation. Additionally, between 2017-2022, she worked closely with professional sign spinners and guided collaborations and conversations among sign spinners, professional dancers, and contemporary art curators and hosted impromptu sign spinning workshops for audiences. Roth has exhibited and participated in residencies nationally and internationally, including in New York (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Smack Mellon, Cuchifritos), Texas (Lawndale Art Center, DiverseWorks), Colorado (Aspen Art Museum, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art), Las Vegas (Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art), California (Grand Central Art Center), the Philippines (Ayala Museum, Vargas Museum), and Czech Republic (Galerie Klatovy-Klenova, Institute of Art/Design-Pilsen), and Germany (Frankfurter Kunstverein).

Yumi Janairo Roth’s research-based practice includes projects built around social engagement and site-specific installation. Since 2021, she has collaborated with Emmanuel David on their project, We Are Coming , which explores the forgotten history of the Filipino Rough Riders who performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Their work has appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art-Denver, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Autry Museum of the American West. Roth’s past projects have focused on the Filipino diaspora and have involved working with Manila-based artists and call center agents, jeepney drivers, and artisans and explored themes of labor, creative exchange, and cultural translation. Additionally, between 2017-2022, she worked closely with professional sign spinners and guided collaborations and conversations among sign spinners, professional dancers, and contemporary art curators and hosted impromptu sign spinning workshops for audiences. Roth has exhibited and participated in residencies nationally and internationally, including in New York (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Smack Mellon, Cuchifritos), Texas (Lawndale Art Center, DiverseWorks), Colorado (Aspen Art Museum, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art), Las Vegas (Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art), California (Grand Central Art Center), the Philippines (Ayala Museum, Vargas Museum), and Czech Republic (Galerie Klatovy-Klenova, Institute of Art/Design-Pilsen), and Germany (Frankfurter Kunstverein).

Website Instagram
Yumi Janairo Roth