Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Chan Sook Choi has held approximately 10 solo exhibitions in Korea, Germany, and Taiwan. Notable solo exhibitions include 《Metamorphose》(2010, KunstDoc Gallery, Seoul), 《The Nine Billion Names of God》(2013, Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul), 《The Promised Land》(2015, Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul), 《Re move》(2016, Grimmuseum, Berlin), 《2017 Art Sonje Project #5: Chan Sook Choi – Re-move》(2017, Art Sonje Center Project Space, Seoul), 《It leaks, the light in their ground》(2020, Seoullo Media Canvas, Seoul), and 《qbit to adam I, adam》(2021, Kang Contemporary, Berlin).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Chan Sook Choi has participated in group exhibitions in Korea, Germany, the United States, Taiwan, Austria, Denmark, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, and Canada. Notable group exhibitions include 《What happened to God?》(2011, Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany), 《Reality》(2013, Gyungnam Art Museum, Changwon, Korea), 《Links-Locality and Nomadism》(2015, Galaxy Contemporary Art Museum, Chongqing, China), 《No Limite》(2017, Museum of UFPA, Belem, Brazil), 《Real DMZ Aarhus Edition》(2017, Aarhus Kunsthal Museum, Aarhus, Denmark), 《Multi-Access 4913》(2019, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul), 《Ars Electronica Festival 2019》(2019, Linz, Austria), 《Time Reality: Disconnection, Traces, Oblivion》(2019, Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul), 《2021 Artist of the Year》(2021, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul), 《Gwangju Media Art Festival 2023》(2023, Gwangju), 《Where Should We Go?》(2023, Pohang Museum of Art, Pohang), 《12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale: THIS TOO, IS A MAP》(2023, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul), 《Negotiating Borders》(2024, SAW Center, Ottawa, Canada), and 《vanishing structures. Politics of Disappearance》(2024, Kunsthalle Exnergasse WUK, Vienna, Austria).

Awards (Selected)

Chan Sook Choi has earned selection to the Seoul Museum of Art’s emerging artist support program (2017), and a visual art support prize from Germany’s Stiftung Kunstfond (2021). In 2021, she received the Korea Artist Prize, awarded by the MMCA and the SBS Culture Foundation.

Collections (Selected)

Chand Sook Choi’s works are housed in the collections of major institutions, including National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Seoul Museum of Art and Sungkok Art Museum.

Originality & Identity

Chan Sook Choi’s artistic practice explores fundamental questions of human existence, focusing on themes of migration, movement, and community. In her early works, she dealt with internal themes such as death, memory, and identity, examining the alterity of a female migrant standing on the boundary—an identity shaped by her experience as an international student in Berlin since 2001. For example, 1218(2007) sensuously visualizes the boundary between life and death by depicting personal memories of her mother’s passing through a dancer's performance. Additionally, Gravity’s Rainbow in Unprepared Time(2009) explores memory and identity at the boundary between illusion and reality, visualizing the process of images fading away like phantoms over time, thus metaphorically conveying the uncertainty of memory.

Her thematic exploration later expanded to include physical and psychological migration and movement, as well as the resulting issues of community and belonging. FOR GOTT EN(2012) records the memories and stories of elderly women from East Germany through interviews, restoring narratives of historical exclusion and repression while shedding light on the voices of forgotten beings. The Promised Land(2015) examines the disembodied movement brought about by the development of information and communication technologies, exploring the issues of ownership and control they provoke. It critically investigates the utopian promises of capitalist society and their inherent illusions.

Recently, her thematic concerns have transitioned to questions of human existence, land, and data ownership. Notably, in qbit to adam(2021), presented at 《Korea Artist Prize 2021》, Choi explored the relationship between land, body, and data, contemplating the philosophical implications of land ownership. The subsequent piece, Qbit to Adam Performance(2022), expands the discussion of land ownership into the digital realm of virtual territories. This work examines the historical continuity from physical mining to cryptocurrency mining, shedding light on the complex narratives of displacement and exclusion within conflicts over ownership.

Her commissioned work for 《The 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale》(2023), THE TUMBLE(2023), visualizes the movement and ecological transformation of tumbleweed in the Arizona desert through archival documentation. The work explores the ecological existence of non-human beings that live by constant migration, expanding her thematic exploration to an ecological and ontological realm.

Style & Contents

From the beginning of her career, Chan Sook Choi has experimented with multimedia formats, spanning video, installation, performance, and photography. Her early works primarily utilized video and performance to create lyrical atmospheres and poetic visual aesthetics. 1218 and Gravity’s Rainbow in Unprepared Time aimed to materialize personal memories and emotions through images and performance, layering physicality and sensation.

Later, she actively adopted installation art and multi-channel video to expand spatial experiences. FOR GOTT EN was composed of a 5-channel video installation that revealed multiple layers of memory from diverse perspectives, allowing the audience to navigate the narrative by moving through the space. Meanwhile, The Promised Land effectively visualized the mobility of the digital age using digital technology and installation, metaphorically integrating virtual spaces into the physical exhibition environment and engaging viewers in sensory experiences.

Her recent works are characterized by the innovative use of cutting-edge technologies such as AI, data, and NFTs, along with unique combinations of performance and video installations.

Topography & Continuity

Chan Sook Choi has established a unique position in the art world by exploring contemporary themes such as identity and memory, histories of migration and individual alienation, and the intersection of physicality and immateriality through diverse media and formats. Starting from personal experiences, her work has now expanded to global issues, creating an artistic discourse that navigates between the local and the global.

Her influence in contemporary art was solidified when she was awarded the final prize at 《Korea Artist Prize 2021》. In 2021, she addressed questions of subjectivity within digital ecosystems, while in 2023, she shifted her focus to the ecological mobility of non-human entities. This thematic progression reflects her ongoing exploration of ontological boundaries. Looking forward, Chan Sook Choi is expected to continue expanding her philosophical inquiries through art, traversing existential borders and challenging conventional notions of being and belonging.