Collaborative Project〈Walking on Sumuk : Echoes of Encounters〉, 2025

Participated in all artworks and installations in this project.
This project includes both an art exhibition and an immersive Pansori performance. The performance is based on the story and themes from a series of my artworks created over several years.
Set in a world where humanity has disappeared, the story unfolds in a ruined landscape where new life begins to grow. In this space, destruction and renewal exist side by side. Strange new lifeforms and traces of the past appear, creating a poetic and imaginative scene. These unfamiliar but somewhat familiar creatures represent a metaphor for change and transformation in the world.
The image above shows an installation view of the exhibition.


‘Walking on Sumuk : Echoes of Encounters’, Suwon, 2025, Installation views

The first act, ‘The Beginning of the journey’, 2025, mixed media, three-panel wooden wall




The third act, ‘The Land of Hybrid’, 2025, mixed media, three-panel wooden wall




The wooden panels were installed at the positions of the first and third acts within the exhibition space.
Through the angular openings carved into the wooden panels, viewers can see the installation works beyond. They function as mediators between scenes and offer symbolic glimpses into the next act.
The panels are installed together with drawings, paintings, and sculptural objects. The works reflect the overall narrative arc of the performance.
Each chapter of the performance corresponds to a series of works, from which individual drawings, small paintings, objects, and by-products of the process are derived and installed together on wooden panels.






The second act, ‘The outcast Beings’
The second act of the Pansori performance, titled ‘The Outcast Beings’, features a total of sixteen artworks.
In this scene, hybrid creatures made by combining different species of pigeons appear. In the 2021–2022 series Rat with Wings, the pigeon serves as a symbolic mediator—once an emblem of freedom, it has now degenerated into a creature that exposes the distortion and hypocrisy of freedom under human desire and control. The hybrid pigeons are realized through a series of drawings and panel works based on a large image database of pigeons collected during the development of this project associated with the notion of the “rat with wings.”Some have wide, webbed feet; others stand tall on long legs with thin, upright necks; some are covered in thick fur all the way to their faces; and others have necks bent backward. These strange beings cry out with eerie voices.
The installation includes hybrid pigeon-related paintings, drawings, and object-based works.


The fourth act, ‘The Cave’(The girl splits the rain and takes refuge in a small cave & 6 other pieces)

The fourth act of the ‘Walking on Sumuk : Echoes of Encounters’ the Pansori performance, titled ‘The Cave’, features a total of seven artworks. The first act of the pansori performance begins with a girl walking alone through a desolate, monochrome world. Along her path lie withered plants stripped of vitality, while decayed and indistinguishable mutant species drift aimlessly, struggling to adapt to a new environment. As she wanders through this devastated realm, the girl encounters a landscape where life and death coexist, and she moves deeper into the gray stillness and distant silence that fill the space.

In this scene, the main character seeks shelter from the heavy rain and enters a small cave. Inside, she encounters various unusual creatures: one with a smooth back covered in scales, another with a long body and tiny legs, and one with feathered tail fins curled to bite its own end. These surreal encounters unfold within the mysterious space of the cave.

To emphasize the spatial characteristics of a cave, I used a secluded corner of the exhibition space to install an ink painting measuring approximately 200 by 500 centimeters on the wall, depicting the interior of a cave. In front of and along the wall where the cave painting was installed, six panels of living creatures were positioned—some standing on the floor and others hung on the wall—creating a connection with the narrative of the performance.


The girl splits the rain and takes refuge in a small cave, 2025, ink on paper, 234x180cm





The Vagabond Forest, 2025, mixed media on paper, 16pieces, each 210x20cm
The fifth act of the pansori performance, titled ‘The Vagabond Forest’, features 16pieces of hanging paintings.
In the forest, the girl becomes lost among traces of beings that vanished without ever seeing the light—unfinished lives, forgotten things, leaving behind only soot and shadows. These spirits no longer know what they once were; they simply drift through the darkness.
The work  is installed with long hanging paintings arranged at intervals, allowing the performer to walk between them during the performance. Two connected paintings were divided into eight sections each, and the sixteen fragmented pieces were installed so that, when viewed from a certain distance directly in front, they align into a complete image—an Anamorphosis that reveals itself only from that precise vantage point.




Treading on washes, 2025, mixed media, variable installation

The final act, ‘The End of the Journey, and…’, includes installations made from mixed media—ink and collage on plywood named, Treading on washes, along with sculptural elements created with foam, soil, branches, and wire. The central tree-like form evokes something beyond this world: its countless roots and branches suggest the passing of millennia, with glimmers of light and quiet energy held within each leaf.





Treading on washes, 2025, ink and collage on plywood, 244x122cm







The performance lasts approximately 30 minutes and 35 seconds. The performer acts as a docent, narrating and interpreting each of the six chapters in the style of pansori as they correspond to the installed artworks. As the story unfolds, the performer moves through the exhibition space, guiding the audience, who follow at a close distance while experiencing the works together.
In act Fourth, in accordance with the narrative, the performer gestures toward the installed sculptures and invites the audience to guess the names of these beings, prompting active participation. During act fifth, The Vagabond Forest, the performer weaves between the hanging paintings, while in the final act, they move through the spaces between sculptural and panel works, adding a sense of dimensionality to the performance.





Photo taken by Yun Gu Ji