To Breathe

Zone of Nowhere, 2018

With a lightness of touch, Kimsooja has transformed the historic Yorkshire Sculpture Park Chapel with To Breathe, an enthralling installation using light, reflection and sound to blur expected boundaries. Covered with a mirrored surface, the floor provides a new way of seeing, opening up and unfolding the architecture, and making solid surfaces and confining structures appear fluid and expansive.

To Breathe, 2019

For over twenty-five years Kimsooja has worked with the notion of bottari – the Korean word for a bundle. Made from cloth tied with a knot to enfold the contents within, these bundles are traditionally used for carrying personal possessions, and relate to the movement, migration and displacement of people. She describes them as “a self-contained world, but one which can contain everything like a vessel, materially and conceptually, since one can tie up a bundle without revealing the contents”. Kimsooja extends this idea to include architecture, symbolically wrapping whole buildings to alter what lies within, as she has done here by using light.

Zone of Nowhere, 2018

Much of the artist’s work takes inspiration from traditional forms of female labour, craft, and everyday actions such as sewing, weaving and folding to investigate the role of women. Making quilts with her mother provided the stimulus for incorporating needlework into her practice and since then Kimsooja has travelled extensively, exploring the cultural importance of clothing, textiles and making. She also considers sewing metaphorically and views the body as a needle that invisibly weaves together the fabric of lives, cultures and cities, celebrating shared humanity regardless of geographical borders.

Until 29 September 2019, Yorkshire Scultpure Park

www.ysp.org.uk

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