The historical events of colonialism, war and financial instability in South Korea have shaped fear, deficiency, and anxiety across generations, resulting in rigid societal expectations of how individuals should behave in order to avoid stigma. The project explores how intergenerational ‘echoes of fear’ reverberate across individual lives and generations, by zooming into the story of one lineage of women.
Through the use of porcelain, one of the most fragile and sensitive types of clay, the project celebrates and honours individuals who have lived through challenges but continue to persevere. Clay holds memories of its past shapes, structures and scars, which can cause it to crack or collapse. Each ceramic piece has its own unique identity, a map of its own unique response to gravity and pressure, much like how societal expectations can impact and shape individuals.
In contrast to the common approach among ceramic makers who try to avoid the risks of cracking, wrinkling and collapsing, this project chooses to embrace these frailties. Each ceramic piece embraces its own unique individuality, much like how individuals find their own unique expression as a result of their personal histories and experiences.
110x75x108cm, porcelain, epoxy, 2023
Photo : Carlfried Verwaayen
Sponsored by EKWC
Click to watch performance video(2023)I trace the lives of three generations of women: my grandmother, my mother, and myself through porcelain. My work begins with a repetitive pursuit of beauty and perfection that can never truly be reached. During a two-month residency, I marked the ceramics, repaired them, and then tried to hide the marks over and over again.
Each morning, I repaired the cracks, knowing they would break again the next day. I continued the process despite the emotional strain. This repetition reflects cycles of trauma and care passed down across generations, making the process itself, the bodily, sensory experience, the heart of the work.
Some marks could not be fixed or hidden; they persisted, unavoidable and visible. The pain, frustration, and careful attention that emerged through this process reflect an aspect of Korean sensibility. These traces reveal the imprint of personal and societal pressures, emphasizing experience and sensation over the finished objects themselves.
All of this unfolded on the most fragile material: porcelain. Its physical limits like gravity, weight make achieving an ideal form impossible. Yet the effort to reach it, the struggle itself, is the essence of the work.
This project is not about the final objects, but about the embodied and emotional experience of breaking, repairing, concealing, repeating, and how memory and sensation carry through these processes.