There, There
What does it mean to be present in a year marked with so much absence? When we look back and say “I was there,” where will that have been? In this online exhibition, four artists respond to shifting notions of selfhood, togetherness, civic participation, and what it means to be a part of this moment.
There, There features new works by Julia Kwon, Lisa Park, Nara Park, and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, and is curated by Adriel Luis.
It is a part of IA&A at Hillyer’s Sister Cities grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to facilitate artistic exchange between Washington, DC and Seoul, South Korea. Many thanks to our partners at The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C., and all the collaborators and artists involved in this exhibition.
3D-printed nylon
9×3.5×4 inches
3D-printed nylon
4×7.5×5 inches
3D-printed nylon
Dimensions variable
As more and more life moved online this year, Nara Park reflected on the place that sculpture holds in this new world. While much of her work investigates the dynamics between natural and fabricated materials, recent restrictions from the outside environment inspired her to finally explore her practice in the digital space. This set of images are photographs of 3D-printed sculptures of rocks and parts of Park’s own body which were first 3D scanned. By transferring the subjects back and forth between physical and digital existences, Park demonstrates that in either realm, everything is ultimately of the same substance.
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Nara Park is a sculptor and installation artist based in Washington, D.C. Park’s work investigates our relationship to the landscape we inhabit and the imprint we leave in it when we are gone. She often uses synthetic materials such as Styrofoam covered with a stone coating or Styrofoam beads dyed with acrylic paint to create three-dimensional works. Her sculptures are inspired by sacred places that can range from memorials to natural rock formations. Park holds a BFA in General Fine Arts followed by an MFA in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she received the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award by the International Sculpture Center and Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship. She is a recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship and the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship. Her work has been on exhibit at numerous venues including Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, The Phillips Collection, Grounds for Sculpture, Baltimore/Washington International Airport, and American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. Her work has been featured in the Sculpture magazine, The Washington Post, and Artnet News. Her works are included in the collections of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, as well as The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.
Lisa Park’s visualizations of biometric data inspire new understandings of human connection, and are often experienced as live performances or immersive works. While in quarantine, she has instead looked inward, observing how her own humanity has been shifted by today’s circumstances. Throughout this exhibition, Park will periodically share feeds of data generated from her body as she goes about her daily existence – exposing life itself as a durational performance.
Check back occasionally for updates.
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Lisa Park is a multidisciplinary artist based in Seoul and New York. She is best known for her works with biofeedback devices, such as heart rate and brainwave sensors to express invisible biological signals and emotions as auditory and visual representations. In creating art installations and performances using sensor technology, she strives to explore the importance of human relationships and connections. Park is a recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Her works have been featured by Art21, Artnet, The Creators Project, New York Times T magazine, Wired, PBS, Time Out NY, the New York Post, and through many other media outlets. She received BFA in Fine Arts at Art Center College of Design and her Masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Julia Kwon has long stood at the intersection of art and activism, but the social unrest and political turmoil that unfolded throughout the year energized her to focus her practice toward one that directly contributes to the movements she was witnessing. Kwon constructed a set of linocut prints that reflect the issues she cares most about – and developed a limited series of prints to be sold in support of those causes, as tangible offerings during a time when public discourse can feel abstract.
Further information about participating in this project is available here.
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Julia Kwon explores identity, intersectionality, community, and personal relationship building through textile art and collaborative projects such as communal quilting, one-on-one portrait drawing, and building a community that shares local artist talks. Kwon earned her M.F.A. at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University and B.A. in Studio Art at Georgetown University. She was also a participant at the Chautauqua School of Art residency program. Her work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC and has been exhibited nationally including art galleries such as Hartnett Gallery of the University of Rochester and Torpedo Factory Art Center. Her work has been featured and reviewed internationally including in television programs such as PBS’s WETA Arts series that showcases the creative arts scene in the Greater Washington DC area as well as one of the major Korean national television networks SBS’s international news.
Text, music, and digital visuals are the raw materials for YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, and the result is a versatile and dynamic body of work that exposes the contours of public and private life. In IS THAT ALL THERE IS, the duo embraces its net art roots, crafting a chaotic, pixelated environment that seems made for this very moment, yet reflective of a distant era. The accompanying narrative moves in the same vein, oscillating between intimate and celestial. It is this upheaval of time and space that may reveal a sense of what lies ahead.
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YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES is Young-hae Chang and Marc Voge. Based in Seoul, they have written their signature animated texts set to their own music in 26 languages and shown many of them at some of the major art institutions in the world, including Tate, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Whitney Museum and New Museum, New York. They have been in the Venice and São Paulo Biennials, among others, won the Webby Award for best art Web site, received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant, and been Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Creative Arts Fellows. M+, in Hong Kong, has acquired an ensemble of all of their past and future work.
Adriel Luis is a community organizer, artist, and curator who believes in collective imagination as a pathway toward liberation. His life’s work is focused on bridging artistic integrity and social vigilance. As Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, he advocates for equitable practices in museums and institutions. Adriel has curated shows at the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building in Washington, D.C., Silo Park in Auckland, and an abandoned Foodland in Honolulu.
IA&A at Hillyer is a non-profit contemporary arts center based in Washington, DC dedicated to promoting cross-cultural understanding through exposure to the arts. Committed to serving the public and supporting artists at all stages of their careers, Hillyer was founded in 2006 and provides support to both local and international artists, as well as presenting programs that reach a broad audience and create a platform for dialogue.