Art context
A traditional Korean-looking but highly technological glass bowl is filled with dry ice and placed inside a small traditional Korean-style gazebo on the seacoast at Songil-jeong (288-63 Songjeong-dong, Haeundae-gu, Busan). The sea breeze is liquified and frozen by the dry ice, causing an ice membrane to form on the surface of the glass. As cooling ends, the ice melts into water at the bottom of the bowl, leaving a visible trace or memory of the East Sea or Pacific Ocean wind and water. The drops are collected in a flask and, along with a video and text about the creation of 'To See The Wind,' are displayed in the gallery space of Naghty Muse.
'To See The Wind' is connected to nature through temporality and environmental interaction. The piece emphasizes ecological awareness and the interplay of human and natural systems. It uses dry ice and sea wind to create transient ice patterns, focusing on environmental processes. Alternatively, it visualises part of becoming aware of the ephemerality and materiality of everything around us, living or non-living.
'To See The Wind' is an ephemeral sculpture, with ice forming and melting, reflecting contemporary global art trends such as those seen at events like Frieze Seoul and the Busan Biennale. These events emphasize sustainability, temporality, and challenge the Anthropocenic worldview. The work’s fleeting nature situates it within the Ephemeral Art movement, which values impermanence and the imprint of human-nature interaction. The collection of water droplets in a flask as a “memory” of the wind responds to my aim to archive fleeting moments through materials sensorially marked by temporal experiences.
Korean context
The choice for 'To See The Wind' to be inside a traditional Korean coastal gazebo at (288-63 Songjeong-dong, Haeundae-gu) in Busan makes the work a Site-Specific art project, related to the same global movement where the artwork’s meaning is inseparable from its location. This resonates with the minimalist impact of specific cultural and natural spots of nowhere to evoke universal meanings. The piece’s interaction with the flow of the East Sea’s wind and waters is a dialogue between local specificity and global environmental context.
Songil-jeong is a traditional Korean gazebo in Haeundae-gu, surrounded by a pine park for reflection and meditation. Its coastal location by the East Sea ties it to Busan’s maritime identity, a city historically shaped by trade, fishing, and cultural exchange with Japan and beyond. As a space for contemplation, the gazebo evokes Korea’s Confucian and Buddhist traditions, where nature is a medium for spiritual insight.
Philosophic context
'To See The Wind' embodies my Ph.D. dissertation “Water as Flowevent” by capturing water’s transformative journey, vapor to ice to liquid, as a Heraclitean process of flux, where change is the only constant. On the other hand, Martin Heidegger’s philosophy frames the sculpture as a poetic act of unconcealing, revealing the wind’s invisible presence through ice patterns in the meditative context of Songil-jeong, a dwelling site. And finally, Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory connects to the collected droplets, which serve as a material memory of the East Sea, exhibited with video and text to construct a story of environmental interaction. These philosophies position the work as a meditation on temporality, human-nature relations, and the preservation of fleeting moments, aligning with my dissertation’s exploration of water’s dynamic role.
July 7, 2025
Busan
Water transcends into culture and nature as a memory of water governance, weaving itself into the fabric of human society through a perpetual hydrosocial cycle. This cycle stems from water’s unique ability to "record and track demographic time," reflecting the passage of time in living human cells, non-living natural systems, and social relationships alike. The concept of Flowevent, among many other things, refers to how societies manage and interact with water, transforming these interactions into a shared social memory. This memory, shaped by collective human experiences with water, manifests across political systems, ideologies, religious beliefs, and philosophical thought, tracing its roots back to the origins of human culture.
PneaOptics is a visualization of breath using icing techniques to observe water in the exhalation. It blends science and art, where the invisible becomes a visual art piece.
At its core, PneaOptics relies on the interplay between temperature and water vapor. When people exhale, their breath carries warm, moist air—laden with water vapor—into the world. Upon meeting a chilled surface or environment, this vapor rapidly cools, condensing from an intangible gas into tiny droplets or delicate ice crystals under the right conditions. These "icing techniques" freeze the breath’s essence into frost, forming intricate, branching patterns that mirror human respiration. Each exhalation, unique in its force and moisture, crafts a crystalline signature—a snapshot of life’s most elemental act. The frost might bloom like miniature ferns or scatter like stars across a frozen plane, each shape a testament to the water once held in somebody's lungs. This is no static display; it’s a dynamic dance of matter, where warmth meets chill, and the ephemeral takes form, if only for a moment.
Yet, PneaOptics is more than a curiosity—it’s a meditation on existence. Breath, the quiet engine of life, is often unseen and unnoticed until it slips away. Here, it is captured, suspended in frost, a fragile echo of the spirit made tangible. Like a snowflake destined to melt, each visualized breath speaks of transience—beautiful, fleeting, and irreplicable. To gaze upon it is to witness the poetry of being: the body’s warmth clashing with the cold, crafting art from the ordinary, and revealing the hidden splendor in every sigh.
In PneaOptics, science and poetry entwine. It is a lens through which the unseen becomes seen, a bridge between the measurable and the mystical. By freezing breath into view, it invites pause, marvel at the delicate interplay of elements, and find awe in the simple, vital act of breathing—a reminder that even the most everyday phenomena shimmer with quiet, breathtaking beauty.
April, 2025
Drawing with one of the most polluted waters in the United States on soft pastel board
Drawing with mercury-soaked N.J. creek water on Arches paper, water test strip, H 16” W 24” (Detail)
Drawing GE plant residues, PCBs, and arsenic on filter paper. H 20” W 25”
Drawing with water residues after rain, PCBs, mercury, and arsenic. PCBs test tube, H 14” W 10”
H35” W24”, Lead oxide, lead nitrate, and lead dioxide on canvas.
Hudson falls water with PCBs and mercury. Digital photography, Size variable.
Hudson falls water with PCBs and mercury. Digital photography, Size variable.
Tap water with Arsenic 20 ng/L, and Mercury 10 ng/L
Hudson falls water with PCBs and mercury. Digital photography, Size variable.
Model of CWA with tap water in small glass inside and water from Hudson River in the big glass. Size H23” W10” D10” Glass, wood, polluted water.
Two half glasses, one with lead polluted water and one with clean healthy water. The water in NJ is still on half of the way to be clean of lead.
This model of 350ml drinking water bottle has the shape of the GE capacitor produced for 40 years in the Hudson Falls GE factory which waste destroyed Hudson River ecosystem for generations. The water in the bottle is tap water from Hudson Falls with 10 cancerogenic contaminants. The filled bottles will be send as award to GE Board of Directors.
