I draw parallels between my practice and the economic activities of myself and people around me, finding a rupture in the banality of something that we have to deal with in our everyday life. My focus is to revive dismissed or neglected objects by putting them into another way of use according to the environment where they are arranged. Instead of giving them a fixed supportive structure, I present them in the way that gives them a leeway to come forward by themselves. Reappropriating various images and texts of the culture industry, I combine the objects with information that I encounter on the internet to streamline my subjective experience. All this methodology, which offers a reasonable doubt and leaves much more to be desired to many, works to propose an alternative to the binding force of the behavioral control of large corporations and the political correctness in the hegemonic culture.
Chinatown 3/23-6/15, 2020, Found objects, dimensions variable
I collected these objects while walking within a limited area in my neighborhood during my self-quarantine, mostly on my way to the supermarket to which I started going recently.
McKinlock Room-Western Art Section, Heritage Museum of Asian Art, 2020, Sumi ink on paper, marker on plastic bags, metal pole, floor lamp, dimensions variable
I transplanted a room in the Art Institute of Chicago to my bedroom which is right next to the Heritage Museum of Asian Art during my self-quarantine.
McKinlock Room-Western Art Section, Heritage Museum of Asian Art, 2020, Sumi ink on paper, marker on plastic bags, metal pole, floor lamp, dimensions variable
I wanted to connect the two buildings, my apartment and Heritage Museum of Asian Art, to annex my bedroom to the museum as its Western art section. I noticed there was a shallow hole on the facing wall. I taped together my floor lamp and the metal pole that I found at the entrance of my apartment, so that it is long enough to reach the hole from my room. I taped five plastic bags on the pole. The plastic bags were sourced from the local supermarket to which I stated going to avoid taking public transportation.
Measure Up, 2019, Tape measure, vinyl text, dimensions variable
The 30-foot tape measure is one of the first things that I bought when I came to Chicago. It is looped over the ceiling frame. Its end reaches down to different heights depending on the space. Its unit of measure is the Imperial System as opposed to the Metric System I am used to. The text pasted on the back of the tape is the combination of the two poems Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” (1959) and N. Scott Momaday’s “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee” (1976).
TapeMeasureIMG_0726
Chicago 2018-2020, 2020, Found objects, vinyl text, print on paper, dimensions variable
I pick up objects I find on the streets while I commute from home to the train station and from the train station to school. I arrange and group them in the space of presentation in terms of association with each other in their materiality, forms, and meanings. The group of the same objects can be arranged in different ways depending on the site. Things are added and rearranged during the exhibition.
A Set within, 2020, Hair bands, metal pins, 80 x 70 x 5 in.
Calling Names, 2020, Found objects, print on paper, metal pins, masking tape, 70 x 30 x 10 in.
Take photos of different things and parts of the wall in the space and put it through Google reverse image search to get words which are its best guess of what the photos are. Then paste the vinyl labels of those texts besides the thing or part of the wall in the actual space. It is a linguistic play by the association of things in a particular place and words through the vision of an image recognition system.
#VCSophy, 2020, Hashtag, dimensions variable
Made for Joseph Grigely’s critique seminar and subsequently adopted as a department-wide hashtag by Visual and Cultural Studies at SAIC.