For my final project for this semester, I decided to make an artwork inspired by the Minjungmisul art movement of South Korea in the 1980s.
Minjungmisul was a Korean art movement where art was used to speak and fight for the people against the authoritarian military government. In Korea, even though we were technically a democratic country, our presidents turned into tyrants and people were constantly oppressed by those who existed to protect them. So against the oppression, people protest against the government and during the process, many people were killed. So in my artwork, essentially, I wanted to portray the 12 democratization movement in contemporary Korean history to show the sufferings we went through to achieve democracy. However, this artwork is not simply about showing the progress in time, but also imply that this tragedy is not limited to Korea. History repeats itself and the present leaves a trace that resembles those of the past. So I wanted the viewers to sense the resemblance between Korea’s history and the current socio-political happening when seeing my artwork. In order to express this aspect, I used the Minjungmisul printmaking style for the illustrations but engraved it on a two-way mirror. Also, when thinking about the setting where this artwork will be exhibited in MoMA, I wanted this work to be part of the New Order: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century exhibition. Therefore, I wanted to add some futuristic feeling within this piece and I thought that two-way mirror and led lights would be effective in expressing that.
First, I started by researching and finding resources on this topic. Because I studied Korean history, I knew about the democratization movement and everything, however, the concept of Minjungmisul was vague to me. So, I read interviews by Minjung activist artists and looked into the artworks to understand why the movement started and how it was effective in uniting the people together to fight for justice.
Basing off the images I found on the democratization movement, I drew them on my notebook with black pens.
Then I used illustrator to trace the images so that I could laser cut them.
Before cutting them on the real material I made a prototype out of chipboard.
After making a prototype, I cut them on the two-way mirror to see if it would turn out as I had imagined.
However, because the acrylic was a mirror film on top of a transparent base when I laser cut them the films were coming off. So I didn’t produce the feeling that I wanted to express. But I wanted to use the two-way mirror acrylic because basically my whole idea was based on this specific material, so it again by adjusting the settings and it eventually worked.
After figuring out the outer box, I made the inner box out of vellum which included images of current Korea, autocrats around the world, and the socio-political protests. And inside the vellum box, I added white led lights using conductive fabric tape and conductive thread to express the concept I explained above.
I put the mini box inside the big acrylic box to see the effects.
Everything turned out as I had expected, so I was extremely satisfied with the result. And the process itself was very interesting, as I was able to experiment with different materials and create an artwork that was different from my previous works. In my bridge 2 mapping a space project, though it had a common theme of Korea, I executed the concept in a way I was confident and comfortable, creating a 2D illustrated book. However, this project was 3D and even when I was making this I had doubt whether this was going to work or not as it required some engineering. I love challenges and I love pushing myself to the limit. And personally, I think this project was quite successful and I am content with my piece. Not simply because it was fabricated well, but through the process of making this, I could think more deeply about my country’s history and the events happening around the world which helped me grow as a person and as an artist.
