From time to time, I work with sewers, craft workers and garment makers in the Dongdaemun market. During this process, I have refined my sewing skills and learned maintenance tips for my sewing machine. I also began to learn knitting from yarn sellers at the basement of Jong-hap fabric market. Whenever I am in Seoul, I spend most of my time walking around the market district watching people making garments and selling decorations where I get inspirations for my work.
I am resistant to the modernist concept of art’s autonomous value coming from the artist’s talent or highly trained fine art skills. Art should be something that can be generated and motivated by anyone as long as the purpose of its doing is genuine and the outcome can instigate immaterial values to be shared. I want to make art that allows us to be connected through non-linguistic ways of communication, that should be something to do with affective ‘pleasure of life’ that William Morris commented as a consequence of labour/craft.
Theatricality,
Transition,
Repetition,
Personal ritual,
These are what sewing performs in my work and what the act and outcome of sewing means to me.