ART-PRESENTATION: Kimsooja-Zone of Nowhere
Kimsooja’s videos and installations blur the boundaries between aesthetics and transcendent experience through their use of repetitive actions, meditative practices, and serial forms. Central to her work is the “bottari”, a traditional Korean bed cover used to wrap and protect personal belongings, which Kimsooja transforms into a philosophical metaphor for structure and connection.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Archive
Kimsooja’s, first solo Australian exhibition “Zone of Nowhere”, is on presentation at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) in Perth as part of the Perth Festival. For more than 30 years, Kimsooja has centred her work around sensitive cultural and political issues and in particular those surrounding migration and displacement. Through installation, performance, sculpture, video and photography, she investigates the human condition and the environment we live in. A key development , her exploration of bottari, bundles of domestic goods wrapped in sheets of traditional Korean fabric, helped bring Kimsooja to Western attention during a residency in New York in the early 1990s. An installation created for this exhibition, “Bottari Truck”, shows the bundles piled high in the back of a vintage pick-up. An accompanying video projection documents her 11-day journey through the Korean countryside in 1997, perched atop bottari in a similar vehicle. She is shot from the rear, sitting still and erect. A lone woman in an austere outfit, her hair clasped in a simple ponytail, she becomes a metaphorical embodiment of human passage through time and space. Kimsooja’s “A Needle Woman” project is among her most memorable work. Amid the busy streets of different cities: Shanghai, New York and Cairo, she meditates with her back to the camera as throngs of people surge past, a single and anonymous point of stillness amid the visual cacophony. “Earth Water Fire Air – Power Plant” was the first ever site-specific Installation at a nuclear power plant, it was presented in Yeonggwang, South Korea. It was installed on a 1,192-meter-long and 8-meter-wide strip of land that stretches between the power station and a nearby lighthouse. Kimsooja’s video installation, which went up in September 2010, had six channels that are projected onto large screens, spaced 200 meters apart, along the breakwater. Video footages taken in Lanzarote Island and Guatemalan volcanoes are featured as the artist’s visual manifestation of nirvana in which each four basic elements reincarnate; burning lava flow became rocks and dust that blew in the air. Titles of each videos, “Fire of Earth”, “Water of Earth”, “Earth of Water”, “Air of Fire”, “Air of Earth”, “Air of Water”, “Fire of Air” and “Water of Air” support such interchanging idea that characteristics of one element is created by the other elements that is related to eastern philosophy, such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism. The artist questions the nuclear power energy as a tool that has two sides of blade revealing the power of yin and yang energy that recreate both productive and destructive energy. This project challenges us to relocate to our origin and to contemplate the peaceful and productive use of the natural energy for the only earth we live on. The exhibition also features “To Breathe – Zone of Nowhere” (2018) an installation of 30 large translucent flags created for PICA’s central gallery space. The work expresses a wish for coexistence, for a utopian society in which individuals unite in celebration of their distinctions and common humanity, the project extents in the streets of Perth.
Info: Curator: Eugenio Viola, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth Cultural Centre, 51 James Street, Northbridge, Perth, Duration 17/2-25/4/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00, http://pica.org.au
