2025-09-04
Daniel Hartman
Design Dispatch, New York
Selected for the inaugural Sailing Dynamics QR exhibition at London’s King’s Cross Canal, Jihae Choe’s kinetic typographic sculpture explores identity through fractured yet legible language.
Jihae Choe is a London-based artist who works with typography not as a neutral system of signs but as a living material charged with emotion, history, and power. For Choe, words are more than tools of communication—they are sites of tension, possibility, and belonging. Her practice asks what lies beneath the surface of text, investigating how language simultaneously connects and divides, comforts and alienates.
Her perspective is shaped by a life lived across cultures, moving between Korea, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Each shift has sharpened her awareness of how language governs inclusion and exclusion, and how identity is never fixed but constantly renegotiated through migration and encounter. In questioning the authority of standardised language, Choe imagines irregularity and imperfection not as deficits but as openings for new forms of expression and community.
English is a kinetic wooden sculpture in which the laser-engraved word “English” is fragmented into 26 vertical slices. Each piece moves in its own unsynchronised rhythm through motors and a custom PCB circuit, producing a trembling, unstable composition.
The work emerged from Choe’s recognition that her second language—English—often falters under pressure: breaking in moments of hesitation, anxiety, or scrutiny. She came to see this fragility as a collective condition shared by countless non-native speakers. The fractured letters remain legible yet unsettled, oscillating between coherence and disruption.
By materialising “broken English” in kinetic form, Choe reframes linguistic instability not as failure but as resilience—an active field where identity and belonging are continually formed.
“I see the instability of language not as a weakness or flaw but as a possibility—an active space where identity is shaped and departures can begin.” — Jihae Choe
Choe’s English was selected for Sailing Dynamics, organised by N()AS UK, the London branch of the international non-profit N()AS Global Network, with curatorial direction by Sel and Harrie C. in partnership with the London Canal Museum and the After School Cookie Club.
The exhibition opened August 9–10, 2025 along the King’s Cross Canal, transforming the city’s waterside into a living gallery. At the same time, the online exhibition ran from August 9–30, 2025, extending access to audiences beyond the physical site. Audiences navigated the route by scanning QR codes scattered across the canal landscape—encountering artworks in augmented reality, video, and image. This guerrilla-style format invited visitors to “sail for themselves,” charting their own course through the exhibition rather than following a predetermined path.
Featuring 13 artists from four countries (UK, Korea, the Netherlands, Singapore), the show foregrounded hybridity and experimentation across media—from AR interventions and textile layering to choreographic video. Within this diverse lineup, English stood out for its integration of motion and typography, offering a bold reimagining of language as a communal rather than private experience.
Poster image © NOAS UK(2025)
Visitors paused along the canal to scan QR codes, film, and photograph the trembling sculpture. Many were drawn to its instability—letters breaking apart yet never collapsing. One described it as “unsettling but beautiful,” noting how the work provoked reflection on the authority of language and its power to shape belonging.
“Jihae Choe’s kinetic typography pushes language beyond static form and into a living, dynamic experience. Her work reveals a sensitive balance between conceptual clarity and experimental freedom, making [the] type feel alive and deeply engaging.” — Thomas Wirtz, Co-Founder & Creative Director at aerosoap
Jihae Choe is a multidisciplinary typographic artist whose practice covers kinetic sculpture, creative coding, installation, and print. Working at the intersection of language and identity, she investigates how words shape both personal and collective belonging. Her works draw on movement and materiality to question linguistic authority in a rapidly shifting global context. She previously won many awards, including the Bronze Award at the CGDA Visual Communication Design Award (China, 2021), the Excellence Award at the 17th Shanxi Design Award (China, 2020), and the Excellence Award in the Interactive Art Award (China, 2020).
Founded in 2018, N()AS is a global non-profit art community with active chapters across South Korea, Japan, the US, and the UK. Dedicated to fostering cross-boundary collaboration, the network supports experimental projects that challenge conventional exhibition formats. Sailing Dynamics marked its inaugural guerrilla exhibition in London, presenting works by 13 international artists through QR code interventions along King’s Cross Canal and an accompanying online platform.
