Seema and Ohkyung x Youngah use bodily figures in their work to talk about how it functions with its social, political, and cultural bearing.
우정
Seema Mattu
05:31, mixed-media animation, 2021
This work looks mainly at themes of friendship and bonds, sparked by a recent VR experience which starts inside a magical ice rink of sorts:
Four friends visit a VR Bar and enter separate white pods led by technicians in white strapped outfits and hefty accessories. It feels like an episode of Black Mirror. There, each friend is alone in a darkened shell - though their voices can be heard through one another's headsets, and this becomes the vehicle through which their bonds are maintained in the virtual space.
By depicting the delicacies of the most historical and cherished friendships, Seema explores the blossoming of new friendships - which been made possible through this exchanged programme.
Seema Mattu is a fluid Valmiki artist, whose practice is framed as a theme park - known as SEEMAWORLD. Within SEEMAWORLD, vessels and portals are built - giving viewers access to the realms Seema constructs. Through the welding of 2D and 3D mixed-media, themes explored include: the system of caste, queer sorcery and gender taxonomy.
X
A Naked Garmet
Ohkyung Jang X Youngah Yi
24:03, HD Single Channel video, 2021
A Naked body is who we are. It is not a deprivation of cultured-ness nor power. Rather, the naked body shows that it houses our life. It is where all begin. Perhaps, having awareness of a physical place – the body – is at the core of sexuality. What we believe to be a correct or norm may be a state of entanglement that traps our body to be free.
Ohkyung Jang X Youngah Yi
Ohkyung Jang explores the process of manifestation of identity, sexuality, body and relationships and shares her perspective through multi-disciplinary performance.
Youngah Yi works with photography and video. She focuses on the individuals who have been forced to wander from majorities and experiments alternative possibility by archiving their language.
We aim to restore the wounded primal desire in the process of owning our sexuality, which has been objectified. Our work captures the physicality of body manifesting the intimacy and playfulness of sexuality in a location that used to be our childhood playground through moving images.
Please visit here to see the exchange archive of Seema and Ohkyung X Youngah.