Biography
From now on, I am going to complete one work task every month. For the last 3 years, I could not fully concentrate on my works because of some environmental issues. So the great thirst for works must have driven me to make such resolution. I am going to concentrate persistently on the daily issues (stories) instead of considering them to be trivial. The thirst I have now may be quenched if I keep on working every month as I have promised myself. Before starting to work, I took a time to reflect through my past to see what I have been interested in while working.
There are people who suffer from the unstable society and political system and when their stories fully deliver the pain among them, the stories become mine. Also the topics that relate me to the people tells me that I am very closely connected, which forces me to begin a new work. For example, I started working on ‘Meeting North Koreans in the Netherlands’, ‘Four men’s journey to North Korea’ and ‘Fishing in the forest,’ which are works from 2009-2011, when I first met a refugee (North Korean defector) in Netherland and grew interest in the human right issues in North Korea. Later, during my residency period in South Korea, I worked on ‘Performance 1minute’ and ‘A wash place’ with a focus on the locational characteristics I observed in a certain region in Korea (Wongok-dong, Ansan) where the foreign laborer population is concentrated. Although the function (communication) I attempted to drew out in the process of working with other artists with ‘the same purposes’ in my performance was found out to be lost, it is considered to be one of the ‘locational characteristics’ of the place.
Finally in 2016, the story I am currently working on is that of ‘protesters on the streets.’ I started to have interest in the issue when I saw a daughter of Namki Baek, who has lost consciousness since when he was hit by water cannon at a protest at Gwanghwamun in Seoul last year, holding a one-man protest at the central station of Rotterdam. Surprisingly enough, as it did 6 years ago, the issues and questions that enlightened me was not found in Korea, but in Netherland. The issues that I could not relate to in Korea – probably I am just too used to the issues or some external force is keeping me blind – seemed to be much more explicit in this country.
I developed my works mostly through drawings, followed by writings, then into performances or various different videos (the order is changed sometimes). I think I will keep this procedure of working, but in ‘2016 Monthly Projects,’ I will be working with people from different areas. I am looking forward to find some interesting results.
