Motivated largely by political, cultural, and social circumstances, Chin works in a variety of art media to calculate meaning in modern life.

Chin places art in landscapes, in public spaces, and in gallery and museum exhibitions, but his work is not limited to specific venues.

In this mimic of a childhood pastime, Chin altered the landscape with an underground hydraulic device that allowed the participants to shift large sections of earth with their body weight.

[3] Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, the work was based on a Gustave Doré engraving depicting Myrrha in the 30th canto of Hell from Dante’s Inferno.

Chin created a three-dimensional figurative sculpture employing 19th century fabrication techniques, conjoined with space-age materials.

The installation comments on the origins of word material and form from East and West by drawing upon mythology, alchemy, and science in each culture.

Also in this exhibition were three major pieces with political content; The Extraction of Plenty from What Remains: 1823- (1989) is composed of two replicated White House columns that squeeze a cornucopia hand-crafted of mahogany, banana, mud, coffee, and goats’ blood.

Chin compounds the iconography of the musical instrument and the hammer and sickle to comment on famine, drought, failed politics, and foreign aid in the history of Ethiopia.

commenting on the interrelations of China, Tibet, and the C.I.A.. Chin conceptually developed the GALA Committee for the project called In the Name of the Place.

The hand woven Turkish carpet juxtaposed with video monitors continued Chin's commentary of new and old digital traditions by paying homage to both.

After a series of successful gallery and museum exhibits, Chin abandoned object making to pursue an activist, ecological artwork.

In this landscape art project, Chin, with scientist, Dr Rufus Chaney, used plants called hyperaccumulators that are known for their ability to draw heavy metals from soil.

Prevailing themes that run through the work selected in this exhibition include war, social injustice, modern media, and individuality.

In 2006 the Frederieke Taylor Gallery in New York City featured a selection of pieces from the "Do Not Ask Me" exhibit, originally shown at the Station Museum, as well as new drawings.

Based on a graphic novella of the same name, which he wrote in 2002, it is a fictional love story set in Santiago, Chile, 1973 and New York City, 2001.

[9] Chin is compelled to make art in spite of his dark world view which is in keeping with his philosophy of “taking action as resistance to insignificance.

In 2006 Mel Chin visited New Orleans after hurricane Katrina to evaluate with fellow artists creative solutions to cure the aftermath of destruction as result of the storm.

Chin began Operation Paydirt to find a solution for the high lead contimination in the soil of New Orleans, a problem that existed before Katrina.

"[17] As part of the Fritschy Culture Award, Mel Chin exhibited a solo show at the museum Het Domein, titled "Disputed Territories".