NOTE FOR AHN(安), GALLERY 175, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, 2019
Exhibition Note for AHN (安) was a two-person exhibition I organized with Ahn Jaeyoung, which began from the question of whether an individual could escape from being possessed — one of the mysterious symptoms containing elements of superstition from Korea. The exhibition, tracks how images attained from one’s superstitious beliefs relate to mythical and religious images, then recombines and deconstructs them. Under our collaboration lies the hope to contact invisible but clearly existing sensual phenomena, and to together overcome anxieties, interpreting phenomena as the destiny of artist/mediator.
Paying attention to the number of tattoos on Ahn Jaeyoung‘s body (the Chinese character 安, a blue diamond, an arrow, a red-haired Anne, Piglet, Mickey Mouse, and an epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis), I interpreted each image as a charm to ward off Ahn’s anxieties. I then, researched mythical and religious imagery in order to strengthen the shamanistic narrative. Observing that the number 12 frequently works as important motive in the myths of many different cultures, I set Ahn Jaeyoung‘s birthday, December 12, as a central axis and tried to discover the references to god-related signs from the number 12. Combining the symbolic world of the image, language, color, and numbers from ancient myths from twelve animals that guards tombs, I created a chart for a system of faith and proposed a psychological space for a praying man, just like the secret connotation of the ancient character, 安
NOTE FOR AHN(安), GALLERY 175, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, 2019
Exhibition Note for AHN (安) was a two-person exhibition I organized with Ahn Jaeyoung, which began from the question of whether an individual could escape from being possessed — one of the mysterious symptoms containing elements of superstition from Korea. The exhibition, tracks how images attained from one’s superstitious beliefs relate to mythical and religious images, then recombines and deconstructs them. Under our collaboration lies the hope to contact invisible but clearly existing sensual phenomena, and to together overcome anxieties, interpreting phenomena as the destiny of artist/mediator.
Paying attention to the number of tattoos on Ahn Jaeyoung‘s body (the Chinese character 安, a blue diamond, an arrow, a red-haired Anne, Piglet, Mickey Mouse, and an epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis), I interpreted each image as a charm to ward off Ahn’s anxieties. I then, researched mythical and religious imagery in order to strengthen the shamanistic narrative. Observing that the number 12 frequently works as important motive in the myths of many different cultures, I set Ahn Jaeyoung‘s birthday, December 12, as a central axis and tried to discover the references to god-related signs from the number 12. Combining the symbolic world of the image, language, color, and numbers from ancient myths from twelve animals that guards tombs, I created a chart for a system of faith and proposed a psychological space for a praying man, just like the secret connotation of the ancient character, 安
The rapt of Proserpina,Joseph-Marie Vien, 1767, Musée de Grenoble
Installation view at 698-9 Seonosong-dong, Jeonju
( February 21 - March 06, 2020), as part of Print/Out,
Photo by Minkyoung Choi
Installation view of Jan van eyck academie openstudios 2021 Still cut, The geometry of the hunter, Single channel video, 2021
Stomata-Stoma(ch)-Storm : Carbon Sink
Labecque Residency Open Studio
La Tour-de-Peilz, CH, 2022
Thus everything inhales and exhales.
In everything there are fleshly tubes,
with little blood in them,
extending to the very ends of the body,
and at their openings, holes gathered closely together
stretch toward the tips of the skin (or nose).
— Empedocles, On Respiration, Fragment 100 (Diels–Kranz)
An ancient myth tells of a deer pursued by the god of the underworld as the sun moves from its antlers toward the sky. At sunset, when the god catches the deer, night begins.* The deer—an intermediary between light and darkness, living flesh and bone, earth and the abyss—has become a recurring motif in my practice.
I repositioned this mythical deer in relation to the oxygen cycle of Lake Geneva, located in front of the residency building. According to EPFL research, the lake overturns once a year during winter, carrying oxygen from the surface to its deepest layers. Yet by the end of the twenty-first century, climate change is expected to reduce oxygen supply by 8 percent and increase deep-water hypoxic zones by 25 percent.**
I recalled the physical sensations of hyperventilation through a breathing experiment. An oxygen saturation sensor was connected to mechanical sound, with the intervals between tones narrowing as my oxygen level decreased. Despite holding my breath until my throat stung and my fingertips tingled, my oxygen saturation fell by no more than 3 percent.
Stomata-Stoma(ch)-Storm : Carbon Sink combines this failed breathing experiment with rock surfaces collected around Lake Geneva through frottage. The installation constructs an imagined hypoxic zone: a slippery red space evoking an underwater abyss of oxidized rock and a warning of future extinction. Air bubbles hidden within gaps in the reflective floor are distorted by light and bodily contact, projecting across the walls. From these fragments emerges C-Flex (Carbon dioxide flexioni), an artificial organism and the deer’s doppelgänger.
* Ariel Golan, The Patterns of the World, p. 163, 2004, Pureun History.
** Robert Vincent Schwefel, Oxygen Depletion in Lake Geneva, p. 116, 2017, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
Stomata-Stoma(ch)-Storm : C-Flex Incubator
Asia Culture Center Residency
2022 Posthuman: Story Telling for Earthly Survival
Gwangju, KR, 2022
Stomata-Stoma(ch)-Storm : C-Flex Incubator is an audiovisual work exploring the transformation of biodegradable plant-based leather through tea fermentation. Recalling microorganisms from the oxygen-free Earth 3.5 billion years ago, the work reflects on the evolution and extinction of matter. C-Flex (Carbonii dioxidum Flexioni), meaning the refraction of carbon dioxide, imagines the reemergence of life in a future of declining oxygen levels. An incubator-like water tank functions as both a scientific apparatus and a miniature planetary environment, while recordings and microscopic images trace the material’s transformation from bacteria to flesh, skin, and an expanded body.