Re-Figure

The series ‘Re-Figure’ surveys time, memory and displacement; the relationship between the human body and the physical, material world. More specifically this body of work engages expressive and conceptual qualities of color and form by using fabric and clothing as subject matter. Clothing itself conveys a slippery relationship between time and memory, and the public and private ways people inhabit it. Garments also speak to how we continuously fashion and refashion our identities. This meditation entails challenging and important questions about representations of women, myself included. In the series, I feature myself in the frame, draped in fabrics harmonized with environments to examine and enact cultural camouflage. This strategy stems from my experiences as a Korean residing in the US for the past seven years and investigating my responses to this relocation. I use my camera to examine how my portrayal as an anonymous figure both visually conforms to American surroundings, but also conveys displacement. I express my sense of estrangement, by not only shielding my features, but also functioning as a visual barrier that the viewer cannot penetrate.