On View: January 14-18, 2025

- Tuesday - Friday: 10 AM - 6 PM / Saturday: 11 AM - 5 PM

Venue: Atrium at the KCCNY (1st Floor)

- 122 East 32nd Street, New York, NY, 10016

<Creatives in Motion> is a collaborative project between the Korean Cultural Center New York and the Korea National University of Arts. Designed to showcase emerging Korean artists and foster connections with local artists and audiences in New York, the event will run for five days starting January 14. Featuring promising talents from the Korea National University of Arts, the program includes exhibitions by three artists and networking opportunities, with highlights such as an opening performance by pianist Jiyeong Mun and an artist talk.

1. SANGHEE: Oneroom-Babel

SANGHEE explores temporality, through shared narratives rooted in generations or eras, using interactive media that invites audience engagement. Her work spans various mediums, including VR, performance, real-time simulation, and photography. These pieces transform exhibition spaces into collective allegories, where viewers actively shape the unfolding stories. Notable works include the interactive VR projects One Room Babel and Worlding···, as well as the performance Interactive Map for Encounter. One Room Babel earned her the Special Award in the New Animation category at Prix Ars Electronica 2023 and an invitation to the Venice Immersive Official Competition.

The Korean term “Oneroom” refers to an apartment in which the bedroom, kitchen, and living room are not separated but integrated into one space. The players dive into the sea to discover Oneroom-Babel through the VR. Upon diving, players visit residential spaces, once occupied by the people in Oneroom-Babel, one after another. The spaces are filled with sentences written by the artist and extracted from interviews with the youth living in Oneroom. With the texts, sound, and dreamlike virtual space captured by a LiDAR scanner, players experience the space of a “one-room apartment” in all possible ways.

2. Minkyeong Kwon: Korea Mutation Creature

Minkyeong Kwon explores the intersection of design, media art, and cultural narratives, crafting visual expressions that seamlessly blend tradition and modernity. With a deep focus on embedding the essence of Korean culture into her creative practice, she reimagines everyday experiences through design, transforming them into unique and compelling visual stories. Kwon aims to continue creating visual designs and media art that bridge Korea’s tradition and modernity, reinterpreting cultural identity while embodying the aesthetic values and philosophy of Korean culture.

Korea Mutation Creature is a work inspired by Haechi, a mythical guardian and symbol of Korean imagination. This media art piece features creatures created by photographing cultural artifacts from Korean palaces and museums, as well as contemporary everyday objects, then combining them through image tracing. It represents a coexistence of history and the present. Each creature embodies a story of protecting Korea, forming a series of media art pieces that include posters and postcards. The nine creatures, each with a unique appearance, are designed by reimagining and combining elements such as traditional lanterns, sundials, the Bangasayusang statue, fans, and Silla-era jewelry.

3. Hwia Kim: Fish Room Therapy

Hwia Kim, an artist based in South Korea, delves into the dynamic interplay of body, consciousness, and technology. Her work explores how physical and digital elements intersect, using interactive media and technology to create new, immersive experiences that blend both realms. She creates innovative works that employ VR, deep learning, and robotics technologies, emphasizing interactive art where audience involvement is integral. By fostering ongoing interactions between the artwork and the audience, Kim views them as unique worlds that shape and redefine one another.

Fish Room Therapy combines the concepts of "fish eggs" and "PC rooms," symbolizing a self-contained world shaped by the interaction of digital environments and individual consciousness. Through digital interfaces, consciousness creates a unique world, akin to a fish egg perceiving the outside while forming an internal ecosystem. This metaphor illustrates how identity develops and expands in the digital realm. Each "fish egg" uses cameras to sense external input and responds through motors or LED signals. Audiences view these perspectives via LCD screens, interacting with the "fish eggs" as both subjects and objects. These interactions foster engagement and culminate in a "therapeutic" experience.