Stagnant Dream, The Salton Sea Project, 2021, Acrylic painting, digital print on plexiglass, 40 x 18 x 15 inch
The Covid-19 pandemic threatens human life worldwide and has devastated millions of lives. The current crisis had a deeper impact on the Asian community. Research has shown, racial discrimination against people of Chinese and other Asian ethnicities has risen sharply especially in the United States. Also, with violent crime and using derogatory phrases such as the Yellow Peril, Model Minority, and Chinese Virus.
I am a Korean, immigrated to the United States in 2012. I have been living as a perpetual outsider. I passionately started the second stage of my life here, where I thought the multicultural aspects of America is what makes this country so beautiful and that it is the perfect place to show my artistic desire to various audiences from different cultures, backgrounds, and points of view. However, under the current political climate with the widespread notion: the “model minority stereotype” (Asians in success makes potential competition or threats to the other racial group), against the backdrop of Covid-19, I felt awfully devastated seeing the gap between my ideological perception and the fact of reality with my own political lens. Within the Asian immigrant artist's point of view, I want to express my alienated and frustrated emotion during the pandemic through the Salton Sea project.
‘The Salton Sea Project’ (2020-2021) is a site-specific collaboration project with three Chinese artists exploring the idea of foreign identity juxtaposed with the Salton Sea, an example of a decaying place that has long been abandoned.
This project includes the ‘Stagnant Dream’ work that is a composition of two sculptural painting pieces referencing my exploration of abandoned places and objects, affected by Covid, near where I lived in southern California. Even today, communal places where there were many residents such as the community pool, barbecue grilled area, and a small trail were now turned into abandoned places. And, there were a lot of objects that I could identify with as they all seemed to be very alienated. All of a sudden, the swimming pool strongly caught my eyes. It resonated as a drowsy and mac and cheesy taste of western vibe, but there was a dreary feeling as if it it as never used or taken care of, like a pool of abandoned stagnant water. Withered palm tree leaves and dead insects floated on the bleach and chlorine water surface, slowly sinking to the bottom of the pool.
I tried to infuse my ongoing discomfort into my artwork by applying translucent material and layering hand-cut photographic images with buttery colors. My ambiguous Asian identity transformed into the translucent sculptural medium. I brought the work to the most abandoned body of water, the Salton Sea. I juxtaposed the abandoned objects from the site with a vast expanse of unprotected water. It creates immersive narrative. I put into play my plain dream by interacting with the surrounding environment and interplaying with natural light and shadow to create the extraordinary “Stagnant Dream.”
I am a Korean, immigrated to the United States in 2012. I have been living as a perpetual outsider. I passionately started the second stage of my life here, where I thought the multicultural aspects of America is what makes this country so beautiful and that it is the perfect place to show my artistic desire to various audiences from different cultures, backgrounds, and points of view. However, under the current political climate with the widespread notion: the “model minority stereotype” (Asians in success makes potential competition or threats to the other racial group), against the backdrop of Covid-19, I felt awfully devastated seeing the gap between my ideological perception and the fact of reality with my own political lens. Within the Asian immigrant artist's point of view, I want to express my alienated and frustrated emotion during the pandemic through the Salton Sea project.
‘The Salton Sea Project’ (2020-2021) is a site-specific collaboration project with three Chinese artists exploring the idea of foreign identity juxtaposed with the Salton Sea, an example of a decaying place that has long been abandoned.
This project includes the ‘Stagnant Dream’ work that is a composition of two sculptural painting pieces referencing my exploration of abandoned places and objects, affected by Covid, near where I lived in southern California. Even today, communal places where there were many residents such as the community pool, barbecue grilled area, and a small trail were now turned into abandoned places. And, there were a lot of objects that I could identify with as they all seemed to be very alienated. All of a sudden, the swimming pool strongly caught my eyes. It resonated as a drowsy and mac and cheesy taste of western vibe, but there was a dreary feeling as if it it as never used or taken care of, like a pool of abandoned stagnant water. Withered palm tree leaves and dead insects floated on the bleach and chlorine water surface, slowly sinking to the bottom of the pool.
I tried to infuse my ongoing discomfort into my artwork by applying translucent material and layering hand-cut photographic images with buttery colors. My ambiguous Asian identity transformed into the translucent sculptural medium. I brought the work to the most abandoned body of water, the Salton Sea. I juxtaposed the abandoned objects from the site with a vast expanse of unprotected water. It creates immersive narrative. I put into play my plain dream by interacting with the surrounding environment and interplaying with natural light and shadow to create the extraordinary “Stagnant Dream.”