Installation view of 《I swim to cry》 (SONGEUN ARTCUBE, 2020) ©Jungyoon Hyen

Jungyoon Hyen has long been interested in the invisible forces that shape the relationships between space, the individual, and the collective, and how those forces impact everyday life. Her approach to sculpture focuses on capturing moments when the object senses and interacts with the surrounding environment.

Born and raised in a new town and having moved between several others, Hyen's work originates from her personal experience of constantly adapting to new, systematically organized spaces. This habitual process of absorbing and adjusting to pre-structured systems became a foundation for her artistic direction. During her time studying in the UK—yet another phase of relocation—Hyen gained an outsider's perspective, which shaped the body of work shown in her debut solo exhibition, 《Walking on Tiptoes》 (Korean Cultural Centre UK, London, 2018). Imagining the act of walking on tiptoes evokes a heightened awareness of the surface beneath one's feet. Hyen hoped that through the exhibition, viewers would begin to imagine the condition of that surface and reflect on the relationship between ground and body—thus initiating a dialogue between urban space and the individual.

Jungyoon Hyen, <i>I swim to cry,</i> 2020, Air-drying clay, silicone, water mirror, styrofoam, plywood, 38x68x26cm, Installation view of 《I swim to cry》 (SONGEUN ARTCUBE, 2020) ©Jungyoon Hyen

If her 2019 solo exhibition 《You Again》 (os, Seoul) expressed a sense of helplessness toward the future, populated by sculptures caught in cycles of sameness and exclusion, her more recent works have begun to “speak.” Now, her sculptures have found their voices. However, even with the power to speak or act, the futures they face remain strikingly repetitive. In her current exhibition, 《I swim to cry》, Hyen questions why these specific futures continue to repeat and interrogates the reproduction of power structures. In the eponymous work, 〈I swim to cry〉 (2020), a swimming goggle is tightly fastened to keep water out, yet a liquid—possibly tears, possibly water—seeps in and blurs vision. The work alludes to two situations: one of swimming in order to hide one’s tears, and another of being overwhelmed by an indistinguishable flow of emotion and environment.

Upon entering the main gallery, visitors are greeted by the work 〈I lived next to you〉(2020), where ambiguous figures—neither clearly victims nor perpetrators—emerge through steel mesh resembling a ceiling grid. The installation of paired sculptures, each echoing its counterpart across the floor and ceiling, evokes an eerily idyllic scene reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Along the gallery wall, a long, symmetrical frame titled 〈Folding and Unfolding〉(2020) stretches like a decalcomania, divided at the center. One side contains a photograph of an ordinary speaker at London’s “Speakers’ Corner,” while the other shows vegetables growing trapped within a wire frame. It is unclear what relationship these two subjects might share, or how they affect one another.

In this environment full of ambiguity, Hyen leaves viewers with 〈Dream of Long Life〉(2020), a work that quietly observes all others in the room, inviting the audience to question the relationships among the space and sculptures themselves. The warm pastel tones used throughout her works create an impression of harmlessness from afar, but upon closer inspection, subtle dualities begin to emerge. Through these sculptural encounters, Hyen continuously explores the cyclical patterns of society and the complex, layered beings she meets along her journey.

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