Filtered Memories 사라진 후에 보이는 것들
2007, size varies, Incense burning (Korean texts of the artist’s father), transfer printing (excerpts in English translation) on Sekishu paper rolls, screen printing (narratives of the artist in English) on folding screen made of plywood, wooden dowels, and mulberry paper, Niyori paper, Korean water bowl (Ong-gi)
“Eight years after my father’s death, my mother sent me his diaries which he began to write when he was my age. I have reproduced selections from those diaries. He has come back as a memory.”
This project was created in memory of my late father and it is a collaboration with him. This project is a large book space through which readers/audiences can walk in order to read the texts and interact with the work. Each hanging piece is a scroll book, and the folding screen is a big accordion book, both of which contain narrative-based texts. This complete installation conceptually represents a Korean traditional ancestral rite, which involves personally rebirthing my father's journal and letting his voice be heard visually and silently.
During the process of enlarging and then tracing my late father’s handwriting from his script, I burned away the texts, creating the negative space and emptiness to visualize his absence. Burning incense as a performative process means not only visualizing the absence (the texts on the paper) but also evoking the spirit, as my forefathers and parents have done with incense during their ancestral rite.
Throughout the entire process of creating this installation, as well as the ultimate presentation of all the components, I was a part of the cycle of replacement in my family.
When lit, text casts shadows. Light creates shadow just as life creates death. My story is about the endless cycle of life. Death is not the end, but the other side of life and a part of it. (Photos by Yongho Bae)
