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[KIMSOOJA]
In this video, I'm facing the nature,

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and behind is the human
watching me.

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My arm is totally outstretched
onto the nature.

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My desire is abandoned,
and my will is abandoned.

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With that duration of performance,

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I experience
a certain transcendence

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of myself,

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and hopefully
audience does too.

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I was, in the beginning,

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thinking of doing kind of
a walking performance,

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but I didn't know exactly where
and how.

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So we just walked around the

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city more than an hour,
just walking and walking

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and walking, and then I arrived
to Shibuya area, where so many

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people were passing by.
and I was totally overwhelmed

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by the crowds around me,
and my body was full of energy

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accumulated by this walking
and thinking of people.

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So at that moment, I aware the–
the distinction between my body

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and the crowd in the street,
and I had to stop there.

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I just couldn't walk anymore.
I had to stop there.

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My first video using my own body

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as a symbolic needle was 
"A Needle Woman" in Tokyo, '99.

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That is like– almost like

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putting, inserting, a needle
onto the earth, in a way.

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And that's more about my energy
I had at the time.

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My system is very much rooted to

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the practice of sewing, that
uses the needle onto fabric.

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I came to a conclusion that
I can be a needle woman.

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[laughs]

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I'm using the pedestrians
passing moment as slow motion,

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as if they are weaved through
my body as a needle.

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It's not about showing my identity,

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so it should be from
behind, not to show my face.

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The camera lens is my eyes, that

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sees my back,

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that sees the
other people in front of me.

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So there is three different perspectives in my
Needle Woman performances.

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My work, in a way, has never

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been completed as a single
piece, I think.

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I've thought always my work is
in transition,

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always in process.
I can ever really finalize,

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"This is completed,"
or, "This is finished."

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Whenever I have a new question,
I would always like to continue

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and see through different
perspective.

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In Korea, we lived in a house
with a straw roof and very cold.

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It was really, really cold.
And even though we had a stove

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in the room, when I woke up in
the morning, there was frost all

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over on the wall around the
room, and I'd been scratching

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on top of it, making, like,
lines and drawings on it.

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Maybe that's my first
drawing piece.

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[chuckles]

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I always discover artistic
questions and answers from our

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daily life activities.

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"Bottari" was one of them.

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Bottari in Korean means
"Bundle."

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Usually we carry it whenever we
have precious things to keep.

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When I first discovered

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bottari as a three-dimensional
sculpture, it was at P.S.1 Studio,

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when I looked back and there was a
bottari, which

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I made but didn't realize
before, because I'd been always

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having these bottaris

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to stack and to keep fabrics in it. 
And that bottari

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looked totally
different from the ones before.

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When I first discover bottari in different formalistic way of
sculpture,

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I started those for some time, 
like a couple of years.

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Then when I returned to Korea, where 
the bottari is our reality,

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I started seeing them
in a different way,

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which is more realistic way.

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A bottari that is more social-, cultural-related object rather
than formalistic sculpture.

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I didn't realize until I did this
"Cities on the Move" Bottari Truck Performance,

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how actually my bottaris are very much
rooted to my family history.

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We were always on the road.

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My father, because of the Korean
War, he had to go to military,

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and then he stayed in military service.

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We always had to move.

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So it's part of our family

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history that had a little bit
of a nomadic life.

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"Laundry Woman" installation with Tibetan monk chant...

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that examine the audience's body

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as a needle that weaves through
the laundry field.

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I use used bedcovers from newly

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married couples that has all
the symbols and embroideries

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of all wishes we want to carry
in our lives,

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Such as long life, love, peace,
and fertility.

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[faint chanted music playing]

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I was invited to create

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a new set-specific project
in Brussels.

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As a perfect installation for
that space, I thought of

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"Lotus: Zone of Zero."

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The sound you hear in this piece

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is a mixture of Tibetan monk
chant, Gregorian chant,

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and Islamic chant.

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Zone of Zero is a 
central location where

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the audience
perceives the three different

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religious chants merged together.

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[merged chanted music playing]

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I used Buddhist lotus-shape
lanterns in it.

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There is a train station
connected to the space,

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so many people walking by,
you know, through every day,

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in the morning and coming back
in the evening.

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So it's like a repeated ceremony
of peace for them.

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I saw the crystal palace a few
years before.

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And I was really struck by the
beauty of that structure,

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and I wanted to do something.
and I started thinking:

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"This space should be empty,
and use it as space itself."

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By not really creating something
physical inside, but putting

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diffraction grating film
that defuses the light into rainbow spectrum,

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and then put mirror all over the

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floor that reflects the whole
structure of the Crystal Palace.

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People are invited to this space
that is filled with my breathing sound in it.

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Breathing in and out is another

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way of weaving and
another way of sewing.

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I see the crystal palace piece as a 
bottari of light and sound

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and reflection.

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I always try to find a transcendent
moment in space within my work.

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My intention is to reach to the
totality of our life and in art.

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So that's always one reason
my practice is quite broad

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and diverse:
to reach that complexity

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and comprehensiveness.

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I don't know in the end

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where I could reach,
but I would like to get to

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that comprehensive totality
in my work.

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[the sound of one person
Inhaling and exhaling playing]

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[ ANNOUNCER ] To learn more about 
Art21: "Art in the Twenty-First Century"

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and its educational resources,

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please visit us online at: 
PBS.org

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Art21: “Art in the Twenty-First Century” is available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

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The companion book is also available.

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