While making these works, my attitude was a bit different from the usual. Somehow, the direction for the Journey series this year and last year is pretty interesting from previous years. I could say the biggest harvest of last year was accepting meditative energy and cultivating myself. It became more me and closer to my life itself. I have been meditating often from a certain point last year, and it was invaluable to understand my emotions and thoughts. One of my bad habits is enduring emotions either way, positive as well as negative. It was dragging me to the dark cave inside of me. Thanks to meditation, I was going to listen to how I understood what was happening around me and how I felt. In The Last 6 months, I met loads of accidental health issues, interesting coincidences, and sudden losses; however, it was so clear to me these life experiences brought me to an indisputable direction, even if it is positive or negative.
Interestingly, the most impressive point to me was the influence from a book called <The Unbearable Lightness of Being> by Milan Kundera while creating my works this year. It might be the first time for me to read this book, like 8 years ago. It sounds very classic that I point out this book, however, this book was weirdly coming to my mind again and again. In the book, Sabina’s life is described as a series of betrayals. I understood her ‘betrayal’ means breaking out of the comfort zone and going off into the unknown. Maybe this is the thing the artist does. The word in the book ‘betray’ was roaming around my ear again and again. ‘Betray’ … ‘Betray’... ‘Betray’....I kept mumbling. I have been translating the meaning of ‘betray’ in the book ‘Brave’. Normally, for people, it is sometimes so much easier to stay in a stable situation. For the Artist, it can be a sign that we need to change our attitude. I wanted to get changes from another direction. It was the reason why I wanted to destroy my works and reconstruct, making the Journey series for the first time. The works have been adding more stories. The beginning of this practice was a marginally small gesture for existing as myself, but now, it is absorbing my life itself. I thought my work was going to be more honest again and again.
The reason why life is weighted is that life is light. This is the paradox of life. Weightness is lightness, lightness is weightness. This is not too far from each other. This is aligned with the context, which I invariably mention about the notion of ‘nothingness’ in my work -everything is nothing, nothing is everything. I understood this as all the possibilities exist at the same time.
“ Es muss Sein, Muss es sein?”
I wanted to borrow this line again from < The Unbearable Lightness of Being>. When I was starting the Journey series, it was my first time betraying myself from what I had learnt, the usual method of using materials around me. The second betrayal was finding a new place, not Seoul, South Korea. I might prepare a third movement for myself. ‘Betrayal’ is now a brave, confident, and new trip for me.
I am in the studio in London, and have been staying in the stillness for the next movement.