Carmen Juliá
I.
Young In Hong’s work is an act of resistance. Drawing attention to marginalised and underrepresented histories and traditions, she challenges the patriarchal narratives that have shaped historical events, past and present. Working across embroidery, performance and sound installations, Hong questions the systems and orders in which we live, aiming to disrupt and reshape our relationships with both history and the natural world. Prompting perceptual shifts and inviting us to reimagine our collective experience, she opens up spaces where forgotten voices and histories can resurface and resonate.
History and its representations feature prominently in her work. “I am interested in history,” she observes, “and I intend [for] each of my works to be a kind of ritual—whether performance or textile work—that re-actualises forgotten historical spaces and times on my own terms.”[1] This relationship to history is especially apparent in her performances, where participants are often tasked with the somewhat arduous request to embody the struggles of marginalised communities or collectives in an act of defiance against oblivion and erasure. “Performance is a statement,” she notes, “an act of rewriting history by different participants in an open and different way. [It is] the history that we carry in our bodies.”[2]
Guided by a strong belief in the democratisation of art and art making, Hong’s performances are inspired by the same dynamics of the flashmob—large public gatherings where people perform an unusual or seemingly random act and then disperse. In Hong’s work, these voluntary gatherings reflect a non-hierarchical approach to the relationship between artist, participants, audience and artwork; a way of relinquishing control, whereby the boundaries between participants and audience, author and work blurred in cathartic manifestations of the individual and the collective, the self and the other. “When producing performances,” she observes, “I aim to question the authority of art, artists and the boundary of the artwork itself. When the work is in the hands of a random general public, there is always the risk of failing when no one turns up.”[3] Participants are typically engaged through online open calls and they are invited to enact choreographies devised by Hong inspired by archival photographs documenting lesser-known histories. The result is thus an attempt to construct a history of affects that bridges generations, cultural differences and geographic locations through a repertoire of myriad improvised gestures, sounds and emotions.
In 2014, Hong presented 5100: Pentagon as part of the Gwangju Biennale. This participatory performance invited Gwangju residents to reenact a brutal episode of state violence from the city’s recent history, the 1980 student uprising against the coup of Chun Doohwan, also known as May 18 Democratisation Movement that was violently suppressed by the South Korean military. In preparation for the work, Hong had access to the official documentation of the events, and devised a choreography based on archival images depicting both bodies of victims and perpetrators. “It was a very emotional experience for the participants as well as the viewers,”[4] Hong recalls, as some of the participants had experienced the uprising themselves, while other younger ones were building their own memories of the events through the performance.
According to Hong, this is a chapter in South Korean recent history that remains largely unexplored due to strict media control. Her work therefore raises complex questions that go beyond the emotional dimension of history and that challenge the construction and meaning of collective memory in countries that have experienced authoritarian regimes and deep societal divisions. What common ground exists for collective memory when access to information is limited and controlled? How does a fragmented society build a shared memory? Is this yet another strategy to erase individual experience and could collective memory ultimately become a form of state control? As participants reflect on Gwangju’s painful history in their own ways, they form a fleeting yet meaningful community, blurring the lines between past and present, individual and collective memory. Despite the lack of transparency and documentation around these events, anyone taking part in the performance would, in effect, be rewriting history.
It is precisely at the intersection of voluntary participation, collective gathering and individual response that the re-enactment of history takes shape, allowing for its reinterpretation and transformation. In Hong’s work, history is no longer a fixed, chronological account of events organised according to a prevailing hierarchy or ideology; instead, it becomes a democratic arena where each participant is invited to act out their own interpretation of and connect with the many (his)stories that have been hidden under a dominant narrative or an enforced collective memory. Ultimately, as Hong explains, history is “something we can participate in and recreate together (…) It’s about our current times”[5]; it no longer belongs in the past, it is here in the present, unravelling in the very same spot where we stand.
II.
Hong’s experiential understanding of history transpires throughout most of her work, where an historical event is often transformed into abstracted embroidery, a musical score or a choreographed performance. In 2024, Hong presented Five Acts, an ambitious installation that brings together embroidery, performance and sculptural objects, consolidating many of the strategies implemented in previous installations and performances while creating a space that is deeply rooted in notions of ritual and the sacred. Commissioned by Spike Island, the work aims “to create a total atmosphere where abstracted symbols, a sense of sacredness and ambiguous narratives will not only be present in the installation but also be acted out more explicitly in the performance.”[6]
Central to the installation hangs an imposing forty-metre-long embroidery tapestry that documents the struggles of women workers in Korea for better working conditions and fair wages between 1920 and 1980. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry—an 11th-century embroidered cloth illustrating the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England in 1066—Hong’s tapestry serves as a tribute to the women who fought against Japanese colonial rule, playing a pivotal role in the modernisation of South Korea.
Divided into eight sections, the tapestry acts as a score for an accompanying performance and details historical events where women took centre stage. Noteworthy figures include Gyeok Hyun (1897–unknown) and Chilseong Jung (1897–1958), two gisaeng (courtesans) who became political activists, advocating for Korea’s independence during the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945; and the haenyeo, or female divers, who spearheaded the Jeju Haenyeo Anti-Japanese Movement between 1931 and 1932. Also featured is the iconic rubber worker Kang Ju-ryong, recognised as the first female political activist in Korea. In 1931, she initiated a solo protest for improved working conditions by climbing onto the roof of the Ulmil Pavilion in Japan-occupied Pyongyang.
The narrative of the tapestry culminates with depictions of the many female textile workers who significantly contributed to the economic growth of South Korea during the 1970s and 1980s. Many of these women, originally peasants who migrated from the countryside to the cities, worked in extremely precarious and, at times, inhumane conditions. Despite the challenges they faced, they were fundamental to the development of a booming textile industry in the years preceding democracy. This section of the tapestry holds particular significance for Hong, as it establishes a direct lineage with the women portrayed, such as the seamstress Shin Soon-ae, whose biography inspired Hong to complete the work.
With a background in music studies, Hong learnt to sew working alongside seamstresses at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Clothing Market. The low-wage labour of sewing, predominantly carried out by female workers across Asia, raises many issues around gender and class. For Hong, it “carries the history of undermining women’s labour in modern Korea”[7]. As author Hye Jin Mun has noted, Hong’s use of sewing does not reinforce notions of femininity, Asianness or subcultural identity. Instead, it exposes hidden dividing lines and challenges perceptions of otherness.[8] Furthermore, Hong’s appropriation of sewing as the medium for her work stems from a strong belief in equality that transpires across all of her practice, where hierarchies are dismantled. “Craft is a sharable language,” she observes, “because skills are accessible,” making it a more inclusive means of communication with broader audiences. “There is pleasure in the process of making too, because the outcome is beautiful.”[9]
Along the bottom strip of the tapestry there are embroidered images of animals and other abstract motifs taken from the Bangudae petroglyphs: prehistoric engravings on flat vertical rock faces, found on cliffs on the riverside of the Daegokcheon stream in South Korea. On the reverse side of the tapestry, Hong depicts more animals and geometric patterns taken from the Cheonjeon-ri petroglyphs, also from the Daegokcheon stream, which date back to the Neolithic Age and the Silla Dynasty (668–935).
The tapestry is surrounded by a series of textile sculptures created in collaboration with a local willow weaver using natural fibres. These sculptures are inspired by a range of objects: animal toys commonly found in zoos; a gime—a ritual paper screen traditionally used on Jeju Island, South Korea, to separate the secular from the sacred; a ttwari, a ring-shaped item made of straw or cloth used for carrying loads on the head; and a Taiko drum.
Drawing inspiration from Korean shamanic traditions—particularly the way shamans on Jeju Island prepare for rituals by crafting symbolic paper props—the performance that completes Five Acts weaves together a multitude of gestures and emotional registers across shifting temporalities and rhythms. At the heart of the piece is the resounding boom of the Taiko drum, which acts as both conductor and score, its rhythms shaped by the many histories embroidered in the tapestry. Four performers respond to these sound and visual cues with improvised movement, engaging directly with the surrounding sculptures. Once static, these objects—standing like totems—are animated through performance, transformed by gesture and sound. The persistent, powerful beat of the drum reverberates through the space, recalling its traditional use to signal soldiers in battle. In shamanic practice, the drum holds particular significance, believed to induce trance and guide the shaman’s journey into the spiritual realm.[10] It becomes a tool of connection, an indispensable element of the séance, where the shaman serves as an intermediary between worlds, aided by guardian spirits.
Within Five Acts, each object in the gallery is charged with latent energy, assuming symbolic significance as it is activated in relation to the tapestry’s imagery. “The object,” Hong notes, “is never the ending point.”[11] Rather, the object is a threshold—awaiting activation, transcendence and transformation. It is a vehicle for ritual, brought to life through performance, taking on new meaning as it moves beyond its physical form.
III.
“Play is a quality that humans have forgotten about,” Hong observes, “in contrast, animals are still playing throughout their lives.”[12] Animals have become the new dwellers in much of Hong’s recent work, their presence—or absence—a reminder of how we, as humans, have lost touch with some of our most basic instincts and functions, such as play. In Five Acts, the act of play—introduced through sculptures resembling zoo toys like hanging ropes or woven balls with bells—becomes a new methodology to engage with history. For Hong, play is not only instinctive but also subversive: a means of resisting fixed narratives and reanimating the past through open, embodied interaction. By activating these objects, the performers disrupt conventional ways of knowing and remembering, offering a more fluid, affective approach to historical engagement.
The presence of animals invokes an ancient time; a longing for a more equitable relationship between humans and more-than-humans. Furthermore, animals and women are often intertwined, both marginalised by patriarchal hierarchies that deem them less worthy of recognition. This relationship is present in Five Acts, and it was particularly compelling in Hong’s earlier work Un-Splitting (2019). Here, Hong worked with archival photographs that deliberately devalue women’s labour, depicting them engaged in domestic tasks at home or working in textile factories, denying them the pride of labour so often associated with male workers. Hong combined the poses of these women with patterns derived from the irregular movements of birds, constructing a unique choreography performed spontaneously by fifteen performers from diverse backgrounds and age groups. The title of the work refers to the psychological term ‘splitting’, which is commonly associated with Borderline Personality Disorder and describes a coping mechanism in which individuals perceive others in extremes, either idealising or demonising them by focusing selectively on positive or negative attributes. The workaddresses splitting as a manifestation of exclusion and extreme objectification toward ‘otherness’, reflecting a symptom of an ailing society, a society that has broken its links with a natural world.
Driven by a strong belief in the social potential of art, Hong’s carefully composed installations and choreographed performances take on a symbolic dimension, where the overlooked is reconfigured through reenactment and reinterpretation. Her work unfolds as a cathartic exercise, shaped by intense transformative encounters, from the embodiment of brutal chapters in history and the symbiosis with animals, to the sacredness of shamanic ritual and the simple joy of playing. Summoning us to a battlefield of memory and affect, Hong’s work stands as a reminder of art’s ability to harness tangible yet forgotten powers, striving to reshape our relationship with the world around us.
[1] Young In Hong in conversation with Fatos Ustek, Spike Island, 14 March 2024 https://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/events/in-conversation-young-in-hong/
[2] Young In Hong in conversation with Fatos Ustek, Spike Island, 14 March 2024 https://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/events/in-conversation-young-in-hong/
[3] Young In Hong: Exploring Forgotten Communities at PKM Gallery. An Interview by Valentina Buzzi, Art She Say, http://younginhong.com/2022/04/15/young-in-hong-exploring-forgotten-communities-at-pkm-gallery/
[4] Young In Hong: Exploring Forgotten Communities at PKM Gallery. An Interview by Valentina Buzzi, Art She Say, http://younginhong.com/2022/04/15/young-in-hong-exploring-forgotten-communities-at-pkm-gallery/
[5] Young In Hong, artist interview, Spike Island, 2 February 2024 https://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/exhibitions/young-in-hong/
[6] The artist in an email to the author, October 2023.
[7] Young In Hong: Exploring Forgotten Communities at PKM Gallery. An Interview by Valentina Buzzi, Art She Say, http://younginhong.com/2022/04/15/young-in-hong-exploring-forgotten-communities-at-pkm-gallery/
[8] Hye Jin Mun, Another Approach to Equality
[9] Young In Hong: Exploring Forgotten Communities at PKM Gallery. An Interview by Valentina Buzzi, Art She Say, http://younginhong.com/2022/04/15/young-in-hong-exploring-forgotten-communities-at-pkm-gallery/
[10] Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press; Revised edition 2004, p. 168.
[11] Young In Hong in conversation with Fatos Ustek, Spike Island, 14 March 2024 https://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/events/in-conversation-young-in-hong/
[12] Young In Hong, artist interview, Spike Island, 2 February 2024 https://www.spikeisland.org.uk/programme/exhibitions/young-in-hong/