WONJEONG DEPARTMENT STORE graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Korea National University of Arts. She currently lives and works in Seoul.
《The Cave Is a Stage》
examines the spatial transformation of Seoripul Youth Art Gallery—an exhibition
space operating within an underground passageway—and focuses on the human body
as the force that activates this transformation. The exhibition presents bodies
situated across multiple spaces and worlds.
Yeonjin Kim and Sooyeon Park
sensorially visualize the invisible interior of their own bodies, while
WONJEONG DEPARTMENT STORE and Mijeong Park address images and perceptions of
the body as shaped by media and society. Sohyun Park and Rahee Oh revisit memories
inscribed on the bodies of others, mediated through their own bodily
experiences.
The exhibition views the gallery
itself as a cave. Upon returning to the surface after viewing the exhibition,
the sensation of glare prompts the viewer to perceive the exhibition space as a
cave. Applying Plato’s allegory of the cave, the glare might be understood as
closer to truth, while the exhibition space could be interpreted as the false
world one must escape. However, in this exhibition, the cave is not a false
world but a stage.
Rather than a stage upon which
shadows mistaken for reality flicker, it becomes a stage where worlds, as
perceived through each individual body, unfold. Thus, the cave becomes a stage,
and the glare becomes the world that one’s body comes to sense.
