INVISIBLE VISION, 2015-2017
K is fascinated by the tragic and unfortunate ones. They are sensitive, fragile and transparent. The delicate, thin and fragile beings rustle. They make more sound than the big, heavy, and solid objects. Hollow and empty signs prove they are alive. This fragility can break or crumble when a strong person makes just one coughing noise. Yet when they are tramped upon or crashed down, they are braver than the large ones. They can bid farewell without making a sound or disappear without a trace.
When K first saw M, she
was attracted to her just as she
is fascinated to the tragic and unfortunate. To be fascinated by something means identification.
It is undeniable that K identified with M. Although the bodies of the two are similar, the history behind each body is different and incomprehensible, and they shared the resembling misery of such bodies. M wanted to be a man and K felt a man’s body with a protruding sexual organ is unattractive. M felt her body with breasts is strange while K disliked her body with breasts. M was like an orphan without anywhere to go and K was like a naked, lustful widow.
They could not (did not) live with the body they are born in and abide by the ‘law’ dictating them to like the body of the other sex. The law is accepted as common sense but even so, breaking the law will make you a criminal. Criminal will be eaten away by the guilt and the shame. They wished to live by their desire and not the law. Such desire has to pay the price. They decided to give back their personal stability and social recognition, and accept anxiety of the soul and punishment of alienation. K and M share one more common trait. Their memories are like a loosely woven net. It is a strategy of the unconscious. The strategy is to engrave shame onto the body instead of erasing away the painful memory. There are different methods to handle negative incidents, and oblivion is the most oppressive one. You are trapped. Unconsciousness executes the strategy meaning there is a purpose. The purpose is survival. The limbic system and cerebral cortex are disrupted to modify the painful sentiments and conflicts in order to maintain their own structure. Therefore even if they are treated as mutants, this method was not so harmful. Life always makes way for the best.
As a best effort from another period, they decided to go on a trip of ‘body gazing’. They have already enjoyed the luxury of oblivion and now is the time to meet with the punctured memories and unfamiliar bodies. That is the only goal. You can see the place you had been
in correctly only when you leave there, and they were only trying to see what was hidden underneath their feet. The unknown and erratic air encountered during the journey brings wonder and joy. At times while passing through some tedious or dangerous moments, the traveler may hide in the cave of her own or console each other’s troubles. So was the journey of these two. K and M chatted much on
the road. They offered to be each other’s trashcan to throw away the distorted and hurtful memories.
In the midst of talking, crying and laughing, they would stop everything when they come to places that touch their hearts. They took off their clothes to help the invisible memory approach the body where memory resides in (or to approach the memory through the body). Then they took photographs. They deciphered the primitive signals of the body and communicated with it. Language does not make sense. Those words were impossible to understand from the beginning. So they let their bodies do what they want to do.
The essence of travel is in returning. So their journey came to an end. As the fantasy of identifying with each other faded away, the shameful eyes looking down at the body have stopped. M no longer feels her body is unfamiliar and K no longer thinks much of her own body. K came home and thought about what is left and what has been abaondoned. Nothing special has been removed or left behind. Only that occasional naked swaying was thrilling and free, that they had a great time at proper moments, and that once again they are living their own mundane life. It was like questioning what have we done, and so what?
K wishes. Those presence that are beautiful because they are sad, do not have to become something and it will be fine even if nothing happens. Still, K wishes that there will be at least some scent of tragedy and misfortune in the air. Strong scent may turn people away but it will also make them notice
its presence. Embracing the pain I do not own becomes possible not when you become happy but when you believe you are preserving the dignity of pain and trying to keep the sentiments of pain. K says she is fine to be a sensitive, fragile and light being. She wants to continue communicating with the fragile, weak and transparent entities. It
is a positive union ‘nonetheless’ embracing oneself and the others instead of sharing the pain. It is the coincidental, the insignificant, and the abnormal, all mixed into one big joyful game.
Han Kyungeun
[Solo Exhibition]
2017 ‘Invisible Vision’, KT&G SangSangMadang Gallery, Seoul
2014 ‘Plasticity of Memory’, Project Space The room (Total Museum), Seoul
[Selected Group Exhibition]
2017 ‘New Force of Photography 2017’, ‘Invisible Vision’, Goeun Museum Of Photography, Busan
2016 ‘Arouse yourself’, ‘Plasticity of Memory’, Hankuk Art Museum, Yongin
2016 ‘Kairos in Photography’, ‘Mookjung’,
Sangsangmadang Chuncheon Art Center Gallery, Chuncheon
2015 ‘Lies of Lies: OnPhotography’, ‘invisible vision_#1,#2′, Huismet de Hoofden, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2015 ‘Lies of Lies: OnPhotography’, ‘invisible vision_restoration and balance’, Total Museum, Seoul
2014 ‘Art of Heungkuk Moving Gallery’, ‘Übermensch’ , SEONHWA Art and Culture Foundation , Seoul
2014 ‘Body and Nature’, ‘Plasticity of Memory’, ArtspaceJ, BoonDang
2013 ‘TRIALOG’, ‘Untitled’, Goethe-Institut Seoul, Seoul
2013 ‘The show must goon_Singapore”, ‘Übermensch’ , Praxis Space, ICAS, Singapore
2013 ‘RoadShow 2013 BaekRyeong Island & Incheon’, ‘(沈)Sim’s crisis and recovery’ , Total Museum, Seoul
2013 ‘Photography & Photography’, ‘Mookjung’, KT&G SangSangMadang, Seoul
2013 ‘New Force of Photography2013’, ‘Mookjung’, Goeun Museum Of Photography, Busan
2012 ‘Homo Empathicus’, ‘Mookjung’, Breda Photo International Festival, Breda, Netherlands
2009 ‘Platform in KIMUSA’, ‘A little Difference’, Art Sonje Center, Seoul
2008 ‘melancholy’, ‘I am a tear-jerker’, Gallery Sogul, Seoul
2007 ‘Happy Puzzle’, ‘Happy Puzzle’, Art outside Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
[Award]
2016 The 9th KT&G SKOPF Final Winner
2012 The 5th KT&G SKOPF Finalist
[List]