Artist’s Statement

    I am interested in human networks.  I am fascinated by how these vast connections are formed and how sensitive they can be if I look closely at each relationship.  However, what makes me more intrigued is how people can force the human network to break by building walls and borders.   It causes pain and hope for reunion to the people who were forcibly separated.  My home country, South Korea, offers many examples of the complicated and painful ways people relate and separate.  This has been one of the reasons I started focusing on these issues; their major importance in my life may have been another.

    After moving to the United States, a branch of my work started focusing more onto my own experience in the world, turning inwards to personal memories, dreams and my path in the world.  The fact of being a foreigner has pushed me to examine more my personal unique viewpoint.  These two directions coexist in my work, and following them I have produced a series of installations, videos and performances.  The core of my recent work would be the idea of longing.  The feeling of longing permeates my work, triggered by my own immigration as well as the history of my home country.  The object of longing could be a certain period of time, a place, a person or something else.  In my project, Free-contact (2008), motivated by the stories of people separated from their loved ones, I created a tactile interface to stimulate people's senses and provoke anonymous affection.  In other recent project No Bridge Travels from Man to Man (2010), I explored different aspects of my own self instead; I formed visual relationships, evoking fragile feelings and a meditative mood.

    In my recent projects, I explored the interaction between the viewer and my work.  I leave space in my installation for the viewers to complete my work.  They exist in the work and make the connection with it.  Each of my projects draws inspiration from a different concept.  Despite that, there are some common characteristics which link my work.  I see every project of mine as a small piece in a puzzle to evolve and complete one big image of my point of view.  This is the connecting and unifying element of my work.