Creatives in Motion
On View: January 14-18, 2025
- Tuesday - Friday: 10 AM - 6 PM / Saturday: 11 AM - 5 PM
- Artist Docent Program: Friday, January 17 (6 PM - 7 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.
Oneroom-Babel is an architectural structure submerged in the deep sea, resembling a massive coral formation. Constructed using scanned data from the living spaces of young adults in Seoul, it offers a multidimensional exploration of “one-room living” through VR. As players navigate this dreamlike environment filled with text, sound, and immersive visuals, they engage with the paradoxical nature of the one-room apartment - a space that embodies both independence and displacement.
This experience encapsulates the collective memory of young adults who leave their roots to live in urban areas, revealing the emotional complexities tied to economic constraints. The one-room apartment becomes a symbol of unresolved longing - a home that is not fully a home, yet represents the transient journey of those searching for permanence. Through VR, Oneroom-Babel transforms these layered emotions into a sensory experience, capturing the profound ambivalence of contemporary urban life.
2. Minkyeong Kwon: Korea Mutation Creature
Minkyeong Kwon explores the intersection of imagination and reality through visual media, with a focus on graphic design and various fields of media art. Her work expands the boundaries of artistic expression by developing a new visual language where technology and art converge. Blending modern sensibilities with traditional values, she reinterprets Korea’s cultural heritage and everyday objects, revealing their potential as elements of artistic transformation rather than mere relics of the past. By weaving together narratives that bridge the contemporary and the historical, she reimagines overlooked aspects of Korea’s legacy, infusing her creations with renewed significance.
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 Eggs
Hwia Kim delves into the complex interactions between the body and consciousness, technology and humanity, focusing on the ambivalence that emerges at blurred boundaries between these elements. Centered on media art, her work incorporates experimental outcomes through technologies such as VR, deep learning, and robotics, with a strong emphasis on audience interaction. By treating the artwork and the viewer as independent worlds, she seeks to create continuous movement and dialogue between these realms.
Belief shapes the world, and confidence fortifies the veil of that world. Just as observing a fish egg reveals a beating heart within and active, restless eyes, we too might exist within our worlds, peering outward through the membranes that surround us. The robotic eyes in the aquarium of Fish Eggs move incessantly, symbolizing our existence in self-contained worlds akin to fish eggs. Each world is inherently beautiful, yet failing to recognize the presence of other worlds and their membranes may lead to imposing the rules of one’s world onto others. To prevent isolation caused by rigidly reinforcing these boundaries, it is essential to remain attuned to the edges of our membranes through constant, flexible interactions between worlds.