Oro Minkyung (b. 1988) creates works that engage with and listen to soundscapes that are often considered barely audible. Through performative actions and sound installations, her practice centers on light and sound, inviting viewers to focus on moments that sense small memories and the subtle tremors of quivering leaves.

Her practice begins with attending to the small movements of light and sound within the phenomena of passing time. She observes the subtle tremors of things that exist around us yet are easily overlooked—light, shadows, energy, relationships, and other delicate vibrations.
 
Oro Minkyung describes herself as a “performer who creates environments,” someone who “plays with space while focusing on the movements of light and sound and the flow of time.” Her works—ranging from installations to performances—connect light, air, sound, and social phenomena through sensory perception.

Elements such as light, shadow, air, and sound—these “small things”—serve as core components in Oro Minkyung’s work. By creating spaces and times in which viewers can sense these subtle and delicate tremors together, the artist has explored a “smaller force” capable of reviving a sense of relationship that has been forgotten among nature, community, and society today.
 
In Hold on (2010), presented shortly after graduating from college, Oro Minkyung traced the shifting shapes of light on the road with chalk from sunrise to sunset, following the changes of light and shadow. Although the fragments of light on the road gradually disappear with the passage of time, the forms she left behind in chalk remain, revealing the power inherent in the very attempt to capture a fleeting moment.

That same year, Put the moment into (2010), created in the Ahyeon-dong redevelopment area, documents traces of small things that quietly yet steadfastly reveal their presence within a disappearing space. Oro Minkyung photographed the shadows of the Ahyeon-dong scenery—scenes that calmly held their own time—then transferred their outlines onto the lids of small paper boxes and carefully cut the lines out.
 
When the lid is closed, light and shadow from the landscapes the artist once faced appear inside the box. Each box contains the shadows of that specific moment, preserving the small but undeniable traces of existence within a time and place on the verge of vanishing.

This series of works laid the foundation for the artist’s practice of “breathing life into what is disappearing and prompting us to look at it anew.” Since then, Oro Minkyung has continued to create installations and performances that translate the subtle vibrations of fading presences into sound, light, and other sensory forms, allowing viewers to experience them perceptually.

Furthermore, in her 2019 solo exhibition 《영인과 나비: 끝의 입자 연구소에서 온 편지》 at Factory2, the artist explored narratives that question socially imposed standards of health, success, and normalcy. She did so through sensory relationships composed of the subtle power of “small things,” attempting to shift the reference points that define these norms.
 
The exhibition unfolds around the story of a fictional character named “영인,” an ill female scientist. 영인 struggles to adapt within a male-centered society but eventually meets colleagues from various professions who share similar circumstances. Together, they establish the “Institute of End Particles,” where they conduct research on ways of seeing that can sustain life.
 
This research, within 영인’s narrative, is based on the idea that “when the different points seen by diverse versions of ‘us’ come together, the world we are able to perceive expands.” In that expanded world, more forms of life may continue to survive.

Building on this approach, the exhibition was structured so that the devices arranged within the space and the senses employed by the viewer resonated with one another. Like a butterfly effect, a single movement could generate another sound, and an act of looking could trigger an action.
 
Within the exhibition space, the viewer’s visual perception extended into auditory sensation, and tactile experiences often culminated in visual ones.
 
Whether through seeing or hearing, even a single sense allowed visitors to perceive the small gestures the artist had carefully set in motion—flickering light, subtle movements, faint sounds, and trembling moments that quietly spread through the space.

Furthermore, the exhibition revealed the artist’s own approach to community-building by collaborating with others, referred to as “Oro Minkyung and Friends.” Through the jointly prepared works on display, the exhibition subtly suggested the kind of community the artist envisions.
 
The works, created in collaboration with a diverse group of people, welcomed visitors to the exhibition as friends, reflecting the artist’s intention to co-create a broader, shared narrative.

Oro Minkyung’s practice, which expands from physical to social senses, began to take a more concrete form through encounters with social events. Subsequently, she explored ways in which art could be directly connected to social issues through activities such as the “Tiny Light” collective, which focuses on marginalized groups and refugee issues.
 
She posed the question, “What sounds and sentiments are necessary for art to serve as mourning and solace?” and sought answers through collaboration with various partners. For example, her 2022 solo exhibition 《Love from Ruins》 incorporated the messages of the “Tiny Light” collective, which in 2021 had attempted to show solidarity with democracy in Myanmar, layering these concerns into her work.

Most of the works in the exhibition were activated through the active interaction of the audience. Visitors could turn various devices on and off with their own hands, lingering within the time of a particular motion before stepping freely outside it.
 
For example, when a switch connected to a toy was turned on, the moving objects in the ‘어리석은 운동 (Foolish Motion)’ series would proceed straight or circle within their tethered positions, unable to leave their designated paths when operated by the audience. The artist described this as a “movement of love.”
 
Among these, the only untethered toy bore the words: “Life, freedom begets freedom; courage begets courage; love.” This phrase was drawn from a video created by the Tiny Light collective in 2021, in solidarity with the people of Myanmar who took to the streets to resist the military coup.

At a table fitted with a vibration speaker, music composed by the artist played, and when the lid of an old jewelry box on the table was opened, sounds recorded around the Sewol Ferry memorial space in Gwanghwamun Square—threatened with demolition in 2021—resonated from speakers positioned all around the room.
 
Through these works, the active participation of the audience allowed narratives of various real-life sites to unfold, guiding viewers toward an experience that expanded into a sense of solidarity.

In 2023, Oro Minkyung participated in 《Random Access Project 3.0》 at the Nam June Paik Art Center, presenting a work that transformed the ways of seeing at the museum into a multisensory experience. A bench and a headset are placed by the window of the gallery with a panoramic view of the green backyard and sky. The voices of a few people heard in the headsets are the conversations of disabled and non-disabled people, friends of different bodies, meeting at dusk to talk about the landscape with lights.
 
This was the sum of various ways of listening that the artist had explored in prior workshops. She proposes to reconnect with the artwork and the landscape by listening to the sensory conversations about the laser, neon light of Nam June Paik's Transmission Tower outside the window.

Starting with a consideration of what attitudes are necessary for a sense of "seeing together," her work invites various collaborators to continue the conversation throughout the exhibition. For example, in the performance work Little Hearts, Strong Consolation (2023), the artist invited two collaborators who each sense the world through different bodies to explore what kind of emotion and sound are necessary to mourn and console both the self and the world.

Oro Minkyung, together with her collaborators, explored the healing potential of sound and space, as well as ways to connect technology with human forms of mourning.
 
In the performance, Jeon Kyungho brings forth a sound that cracks open what has remained unbroken—striking a jing with a hammer, then moving to play the kkwaenggwari with a chime bell. Kang Jaeyoung offers a sound recorded in front of the monument to the victims of the Moiwa Power Plant in Sapporo, sharing a moment of deferred mourning.
 
While receiving and sensing their sounds, Oro Minkyung creates light-evoking tones through a MIDI keyboard, weaving the three voices into a shared act of consolation.

Additionally, in recent work, Oro Minkyung has focused on the sensory experience of “division,” creating soundscapes that seek forms of recovery within the Korean peninsula. For example, her 2024 project The White Lights of Each Other was inspired by the Kaesong Manwoldae inter-Korean joint excavation project and served as an experiment in “viewing a divided society from the perspective of the heart.”
 
The exhibition space, initially dark and still, came to life the moment visitors switched on the lights. Light illuminated the two symmetrical structures, while rotating mirrored columns created twin moons. Birds moved through the space, and sounds collected by the artist from both conflict zones and everyday life filled the environment.

Through this series of sensory environments, the artist poses the question: “What memories do we wish to unearth, and what sounds do we wish to restore?” Her work operates around the inquiry, “How can remembering the past lead us to collectively imagine the future?” It explores the subtle power of connection that can emerge between things that vanish and those that remain unseen or unheard.

In this way, Oro Minkyung’s work examines relationships within various lives through small, subtle elements—the vibrations of beings that have always existed alongside us and sustained us. Spaces filled with these barely perceptible tremors invite audiences to move beyond mere physical sensory experience, using it as a medium to discover connections between technology and society, humans and nature, past and future, ultimately expanding into a new sense of solidarity.

 “I think about the midday light that falls equally on everyone.”  (Oro Minkyung, Artist’s Note)

Oro Minkyung majored in sculpture in college and has continued her practice through exhibitions, performances, workshops, and screenings in collaboration with various collaborators. Her solo exhibitions include 《Love from Ruins》 (Art Jamsil, Seoul, 2022), 《영인과 나비: 끝의 입자 연구소에서 온 편지》 (Factory 2, Seoul, 2019), and 《One’s Scenery》 (Alternative Space Noon, Suwon, 2012).
 
She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Immaterial to Hypermaterial》 (Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, 2025), 《Reliance and Independence》 (Amado Art Space, Seoul, 2025), 《Asynchronous Singing》 (ARKO Art Center, Seoul, 2024), 《Memory, Stare, Wish》 (Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, 2024), and 《Random Access Project 3.0》 (Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin, 2023).
 
Oro Minkyung was selected as a Science Walden Artist at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in 2019 and received an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2017. Her work is included in the collection of the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art.

References

• 오로민경, Oro Minkyung (Artist Website)
• 백남준아트센터, 랜덤 액세스 프로젝트 3.0 오로민경: 빛을 전하는 시간 (Nam June Paik Art Center, Random Access Project 3.0 Oro Minkyung: Letters for This Light)
• 팩토리2, [서문] 영인과 나비: 끝의 입자 연구소에서 온 편지 (Factory2, [Preface] 영인과 나비: 끝의 입자 연구소에서 온 편지)
• 아트잠실, [서문] 폐허에서 온 사랑 (Art Jamsil, [Preface] Love from ruins)
• 월간미술, 작은 빛, 대기, 숨결을 돌보는