Installation and Performance
Symbol(cyst)ism
2016, performance, installation
Does something hold meaning because I love it? What should be considered a "blank slate" or uncharged object? Does an uncharged object exist? Is white really the absence of connotation or is it also charged with meaning?
In my performance I smashed plaster covered pomegranates and tore them apart with my hands and stained the white dress I was wearing to symbolize my struggle with my biracial identity. It was thirty minutes long in full. Oliver Glynn, another student at UNCSA, composed music which was played by a solo violinist. It reiterated the feeling of being tainted because of being othered as a Korean, Jewish, queer person growing up in North Carolina, and not being accepted in Korean communities because I wasn't completely Korean and wasn't Christian. Afterwards I hung my dress on the installation, and the piece was viewable for a few more hours.
Cheap 'n Easy!
2017, performance, wearable sculpture
America sells, romanticizes, and cheapens other cultures. I look around and I see people wearing cheap, manufactured and unauthentic versions of traditional Asian dress and anger builds up inside of me for my people who fought hard to make a living and establish themselves in this country that does not in return respect their culture and where they come from. I made my version of a traditional Korean crown out of cardboard to indicate the cheapening of cultures that I see in America.
Well We Both Eat Pickles…
2017, Installation
The need for roots to nourish our identity is a little realized fact in society. I titled this altar to my heritage "Well We Both Eat Pickles" as an homage to the fact that two cultures I was raised with (Korean and Judaism) both eat pickles. In this installation passers-by were encouraged to try the kimchi and pickles: a taste of my culture. The frames contained pictures of me posing with breasts I made from kimchi and pickles to represent my struggle as a non-binary queer Korean Jewish person. The pictures on the platters are of sections of my body covered in kimchi and pickles. It is hard to grow up in minority communities that should be safe places, but end up being just as ostracizing in many ways. In order to fit into the Jewish community I felt like I needed to disguise myself as a woman and blend into those customs, and in order to fit into the Korean community I also needed to act feminine and be mild-mannered.