Installation view of 《One’s Scenery》 © Oro Minkyung

Artist Note
 
#The Floor

I think about the floor — yours and mine —the very bottom that bears all weight. The floor often tells the story of the place. The floor of my room now has a crescent-shaped dent, and the floor of Euljiro 4-ga is cracked in every direction.

#The Hole

My eyes are holes, My mouth, a hole, My ears, a hole, My nose, a hole, My anus, a hole. The gong of Confucius is a hole —a rabbit’s burrow is a hole —an escape hole —a hole one might drop something through. I always see through a small hole.

Installation view of 《One’s Scenery》 © Oro Minkyung

In daily life, we encounter countless landscapes. Those fleeting moments scatter like fragments and remain as memory — and through their re-stitching, long tunnels of thought are built. Inside my head, incomplete and hazy scenes fill the tunnels like fog. I wanted to reveal those hazy landscapes as they are, even if intangible, like fog.

What I wish to observe — with attention or patience — lies behind the neatly reflected surfaces. The underside is hidden beneath peaceful appearances. Perhaps because of that curiosity, I became eager to know what lies at the bottom of a situation — or rather, determined never to forget the bottom. The floor, always holding the very bottom of any scenery, supports all things — and by supporting everything, it can hear everything — the secret witness of all landscapes.

I place the sounds of scenery from my footsteps onto the floor and bring out the sounds of several stored memories. The world I observe with my two eyes, ears, nose — with these small holes belonging to a small person named “me” — is a narrow, deeply private landscape. Perhaps a long tunnel where only one can enter. Seen through a small hole, the landscape outside sometimes appears too beautiful to be real, other times frightening and cruel.

The hole is narrow, but because of that, it has its own sound — and gives space for imagination toward unseen parts. If the floor contains the breeze of sound that can be heard in every scenery, the hole is the only exit through which that sound can be truly heard. If what I want to say lies at my very bottom, then a hole is the only escape for it. Through that small hole, I look at my own sceneries, remember them, and bring back their faint, private stories to others.

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