Winter 2025 - WINNER

Adrift

My art practice is a meditation on the metaphors of chairs and stones, both of which serve as vessels for exploring the "movement" inherent in human life. This exploration begins with abandoned chairs found on the streets—objects once belonging to someone, now deconstructed and reproduced through molds. They represent the diverse forms of migration we all experience, whether physical, geographical, or relational. Having journeyed from Korea to the United States, I have lived through continuous and overlapping layers of displacement. Ironically, it was through the sensation of my body feeling "adrift" that I realized a profound truth: even when the spirit is in flux, the physical self still requires, at the very least, a space for one person. My work with chairs embodies this delicate tension between constant migration and the fundamental necessity of finding one’s "place." This search for place extends to my work with stones. A stone encountered by chance carries an unknown origin, yet each possesses a face that is subtly similar yet distinct—much like the layered, silent histories of human beings. By incorporating kinetic motors into these static forms, I allow the stones to manifest a literal movement, breathing life into their stillness. Through this dialogue between the domesticity of the chair and the primal endurance of the stone, I seek to capture the essence of our existence: always moving, yet always seeking a ground to settle upon.