2019
Young-Heung Island, Incheon, South Korea
HD Single channel video (31:40min)
Video Excerpt 3min
Landscape Painting is a project composed of research, performance, and a video about the Young-Heung Island in Incheon, South Korea. The project focuses on my father’s stories about the loss of the clean seawater and tidelands on this island to industrial development and tourism.
I interviewed my father, who was born and raised on the island, to learn how the landscape lost its original features. The construction of a new tide embankment, power plant, and bridge to the mainland had a devastating impact on the locals’ livelihoods.
Based on my father’s memories, I painted a scene of the sea with the original natural scenery superimposed on an image of the new constructions. With this painting, I am unearthing a remembered landscape, challenging the appropriateness of the new construction in the local community.
2017
Painting on glass with crude oil
HD single channel video (7:57 min) and Photography Series
Video Excerpt 2:53min
Oil Painting is video and photo documentation of a painting-on-glass performance that took place in Al Balad, old town Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The demolished parts of the buildings were symbolically restored in the paintings with crude oil extracted in Saudi Arabia.
For longer than a thousand years, Al Balad has conserved its traditional architecture and livelihood as the center of the city Jeddah. Since the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s, the town has lost its original character and been left behind as a remnant without proper water and electricity resources. New modern architecture in areas that can be accessed by car has replaced much of the region, but the old town attracts immigrants from neighboring countries.
The Platform
Concrete, Wood, Leather, Chandelier
2019
6.5’ x 9’ x 6’
Heon-In Village Bus Station, Seoul, South Korea
Residents in Heonin town in Seoul, Korea are living without public facilities since the redevelopment plan has been suspended. ‘The Platform’ was fabricated with the furniture makers in town both as public furniture and as bus shelter.
2016
Tehran
Site-specific Intervention/ Performance
Video documentation
Dancing in public space is illegal in Iran. Although there are many restrictions on body such as wearing scarf and covering body with long cloth are mandatory for women in public space in Iran, this restriction on free movement imposes strong control on individual bodies in everyday life.
The performance ‘The Way to Freedom Square’ explores the border between standing/walking/free movement of body and dancing on the street in Tehran. This performance is navigating the alternative ways for freedom of the body.
Fulong Beach, Taiwan
2013
Temporary Intervention
Painting on a wooden panel with acrylic
Single channel video 6:01min.
Fulong Beach is located on the North East side of Taiwan. It is popular for its beautiful scenery and attracts both tourists and fishermen.The Longman Nuclear Power Plant was built right in front of Fulong Beach in 1997 but its activation was delayed several times due to political conflicts relating to safety issues.
Alongside the video documentation and interviews with tourists and fishermen on site at Fulong Beach, a temporary intervention took place on the 19th and 20th of October, 2013. The action attempts to visually erase the presence of the nuclear power plant by camouflaging it with the background scenery.
2015
Paper, Canvas frame
Sappi Paper Mill, ME, USA
Single channel video (2:00min.)
When you see bright stars at night, white clouds against blue sky, and marvelous white mountains covered with snow, do these seem real to you?
Every piece of land has been depicted in some way by someone for some reason. From the geological to understanding the anthropocene, every piece of land has had many stories embedded in it and will continue to gain more of them. However, no landscape is ever neutral to everyone.
Landscape Collection attempts to juxtapose natural sceneries with the seeming naturalness of certain geographical locations today. In a series of videos, the romanticized cliché of landscapes has been made with artificial elements that are actual factors in dissipating the landscape itself.
2015
Grindelwald, Switzerland
Plastic flowers made in China
Site-specific Intervention, Video
FACTORyAL LANDSCAPE is consists of video documentation of site-specific installation and performance. The action is to plant artificial flowers made in China in the field near the mountain in the Alps. The Alps is known for its beautiful nature and landscapes, especially for many Asian people as one of the most famous tourist spots. This performance is motivated by traditional Buddhist ceremony in Asia to release captured animals to free them back to nature.
2012-2013
Gumi, South Korea
Temporary action, Photo Documentation, Video
On September 27th, 2012, there was an accident at the Hub Global Chemical Plant in Gumi, South Korea, and large amounts of toxic fluoride gas was released into the town. Within a two kilometers radius, five people died, eighteen people were in critical condition, and hundreds of people were treated for exposure to toxic gas. Many of the trees lost their leaves and the livestock developed respiratory diseases.
The project consists of creating green lamps shades to place in the pepper field which has dried up and changed color from green to brown. This action references the government’s superficial cover-up of the accident while trying to bring back the original character of the site. It is a symbolic attempt to turn back time, which is inspired by the naturally changing of the seasons.
2012
Weimar, Germany
Temporary Installation
A chandelier, broken glass bottles taken from the site
The Viehauktionshalle in Weimar, Germany was originally constructed as a cattle auction and was later used as a temporary holding place for people who were being sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. The Chandelier was transformed with pieces of glass that were scattered in front of the building and hung in the external entranceway, in the place of a dysfunctional lamp.
The chandelier illuminated this formerly dark place, currently used by anonymous people who drink at night. The installation was mounted for three days from January 24th to January 26th, 2012.
2014
Missouri River, Nebraska City, USA
Temporary Intervention(Performance)
Video Documentation(4:35 min)
The 2011 Missouri River floods surrounded the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station, and fire caused electricity to shut off in the spent fuel pools resulting in 90 minutes without cooling qualifying as a “red event.” Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska is still operating although there is potential danger from flood events.
This temporary action took place on the 19th of December 2013 along the Missouri river in Nebraska City, which is about fifty miles away from each plant. The intervention consists of a performance scooping up the water from the river to lower its level.
by Sujin Lim and Kate Abarbanel
2017
by Sujin Lim and Matthew Mazzotta
In the port of Pozzallo on the South coast of Sicily, the Italian government has collected the abandoned boats found on the shore from people in Africa and the Middle East fleeing their homeland situations. Five kilometers from this boat graveyard, a child’s toy boat left behind from a family outing is swept in and out on the sandy beach. Filmed on the same day, these two images of water vessels are the traces of life events that share the same sea and shoreline: one of leisure and the other of survival.
