Cho Ho
Young’s practice begins with observing the structures of actions and sensations
that are repeatedly performed in everyday life yet rarely registered
consciously. Rather than presenting objects or situations as fixed in meaning,
she focuses on how they form relationships and transform within specific
environments. The core of her work lies not in the object itself, but in the
subtle differences and transitional moments that emerge between the object, the
individual, and the individual’s bodily perception.
The work From
60cm to 120cm (2017–2019) is a representative example that explores
how psychological distance between people manifests as physical behavior. By
observing the range of personal space that individuals unconsciously maintain
and translating it into an installation structure, Cho reveals how intimacy and
tension, comfort and discomfort, are sensed through the act of adjusting
distance. This interest later narrows to relationships between two individuals,
as seen in Relative Velocity of One Revolution(2019), where
the balance of a relationship is shown to be formed through constant
adjustment.
Subsequently,
the artist’s focus shifts from the sensation of relationships to the cognitive
structures through which sensation itself is formed. In her first solo
exhibition, 《[Alert] Chewing water
slowly is recommended》 (Post Territory Ujeongguk,
2020), she rearranges an environment shaped by speed and efficiency into a
slower rhythm, foregrounding the fact that sensation and perception are never
entirely precise. The Weight from Your Scale(2020) returns
“weight,” previously reduced to numerical values, to bodily sensation,
questioning the gap between measurement and perception.
In more
recent works, this line of inquiry deepens toward the “conditions that
constitute experience” rather than the “content of experience.” The solo
exhibition 《Stereoscope》 (Post Territory Ujeongguk, 2023) investigates how learned
perceptual systems pre-organize the world, creating moments in which viewers
recognize sensations that diverge from expectation through their own bodies.
This trajectory continues with A Patch of Ground presented
in the group exhibition 《Random Access Project 3.0》 (Nam June Paik Art Center, 2023), where balance and stability are
expanded into a spatial experience, understood not as fixed states but as
outcomes of continuous relational adjustment.