Call for Curators Exhibition 3
<Reimagining Places: Land, Store, Home>
Focus on Artist 3: Yoon Jin Jung
Artist Statement
Yoon Jin Jung
Mille-Feuille City Nabe (Seoul), multi-channel video Installation, 2022–23
Beyond, pigment ink on archival paper, 55cm x 36cm, 2022
Toward, pigment ink on archival paper, 55cm x 36cm, 2022
For Homeseekers, participatory art installation—aid materials collecting, 2023
Suspended Home, Augmented-Reality installation, 2023
The four types of works on display raise questions about housing and life experiences, in both the past and the present. Together, they explore the impact of history, the global climate crisis, desire, deficiency, and usurped space at multi-social levels. Humans have invaded the habitats of animals and plants to build more towers, and wars of aggression destroy the lives of others. Facing the unexpected and seeking refuge from threats and famine, humans become more desperate for survival. Living in cities is similar to living on a battlefield. Unstable housing and social isolation can cause people to lose their will to live. Each of the works I have brought together for this exhibition focuses on a specific situation in time and place that is universally relatable.
Mille-Feuille City Nabe (Seoul) borrows its name from Mille-Feuille Nabe, a Korean stew whose name blends the French word for a thousand layers with the Japanese word for the dish of hot pot. The density of ingredients in the stew is similar to the city view in Korea, where many people live in densely spaced apartments that are as tall as mountains. The multi-channel video installation compares and contrasts apartments and mountains side by side on two monitors, which display actual photo documentation of the city views and a 3D production from geo data sourced from Google Maps.
Beyond and Toward were photographed at the Okmae Mine Historical site, in Haenam, in the southernmost part of South Korea. Koreans were brought to the mine as forced labourers during the Japanese colonization, to mine minerals. These Koreans were subsequently forcibly taken by the Japanese army to Jeju Island, where, unable to return home, they worked and eventually died.
For Homeseekers is an installation to be completed by audience participation. Every year, people, animals, and plants lose their homes through natural and human-made disasters, such as infectious diseases, wars, and climate change. Home, which should be a safe place, is always vulnerable. Protecting our home, together with that of other species, requires everyone’s attention and effort. A tent installed in the gallery is a symbolic home for those who need solidarity at this moment. The audience are invited to bring blankets and aid materials as forms of participation and solidarity. The collected blankets and aid materials will be sent to the Republic of Türkiye or to a local community in need of these materials.
An augmented-reality work based on reality, Suspended Home shows virtual images of houses floating in the air against the backdrop of the tent installation For Homeseekers. The project visually expresses the unstable conditions of the physical and psychological spaces of the home given to individuals.
Yoon Jin Jung is an interdisciplinary artist and curator practicing in Toronto and Seoul. Jung creates installations that embody physical and digital spaces based on perceptual data, in order to explore suggested environments in specific times and locations.
Further information on Call for Curators Exhibition 3 - <Reimagining Places: Land, Store, Home>
https://canada.korean-culture.org/en/1237/board/572/read/121924