Artist statement

 

The nature of dualities is the crux of my interdisciplinary art practice. Using photography, text, video, and relational aesthetics, I examine the tension and fluctuation between outsider and insider, private and public, perception and reality, memory and history. Born in Seoul and raised in Los Angeles, my Korean American experience has always necessitated the navigation of multiple identities and communities, as well as the murkier non-places between them. For example, as a woman of color without a color who is neither Black nor white, I reside in a racial non-place that has been largely irrelevant in major political, social, and cultural discourses. My work brings these non-places to the forefront, inviting the viewer to step into liminality in order to reach a kind of visceral empathy with others.

Central to this work is its accessibility to those who may find traditional art frameworks alienating or intimidating. Bypassing common signifiers of an art experience, I host dinner parties and other interactive experiences in everyday spaces to explore the political nature of personal and public spaces. I also utilize alternate forms of storytelling, such as a walking tour of my childhood neighborhood, to both clarify and obscure power dynamics within cultural and social constructs. I ask viewers and participants to rely on instinctual rather than intellectual resonance to gain connection and insight into the complexities of dualities and the in-between.