Sejin Kim graduated from the Department of Oriental Painting at Hongik University and then majored in film at the Graduate School of Media Arts at Sogang University. She further studied media art at Slade School of Fine Art (UCL) in the UK. She currently lives and works in Seoul, Korea.
In
Sejin Kim’s exhibition Liquid City, the notions of time and
space are metaphorically used to convey a sense of anxiety about the social
structures experienced through different modes of urban survival.
The
cityscapes shown in her videos present the material city constructed by the
massive desire named capital, and the lived environment of those within it.
Through cinematic devices, the exhibition invites us to reconsider the
illusions of the present, exposing how power, capital, and class—and the
violence they generate—operate upon individuals navigating the urban space.
The
work reminds us of the latent violence common to all urban societies, a force
the artist has perceived across cities of vastly different characteristics.
Within such spaces, the city’s desire manifests through abstract institutional
systems that neglect the lives of individuals.
Kim
also raises the question: despite the diverse historical and environmental
contexts that ought to shape unique social systems in each country and city,
are we not witnessing all cities rush toward the same dystopia under the name
of globalization?
Having
experienced these phenomena firsthand, the artist takes a critical stance
through the practical act of art-making. The divided composition of the screen
continuously shifts the viewer’s flow of consciousness. Through the repetition
and replay of this ever-changing screen, the work subverts habitual modes of
thought and attempts to generate new reflections.
This
exhibition does not offer answers, but rather poses a question:
Can we envision a free city—a liquid city—that resists the
violence of capitalism masked as universal identity?
A city that defies fixed customs, traits, or forms, and instead remains
undefined and fluid?
