1
00:00:15,494 --> 00:00:19,600
DHS: Once my fortuneteller 
told me that I have five horses

2
00:00:20,412 --> 00:00:22,440
and that means that I travel a lot.

3
00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:29,193
So I’m basically destined to leave 
home and live somewhere else.

4
00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:36,440
I think I wanted to leave 
home because of my father.

5
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:38,695
He’s a successful painter.

6
00:00:42,260 --> 00:00:45,167
Somehow I felt that his fame

7
00:00:45,167 --> 00:00:51,320
overshadowed me and I wanted to do my own thing.

8
00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:01,240
You know, New York is crazy, really really noisy.

9
00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:03,401
And I couldn’t sleep that well.

10
00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:10,675
And I was thinking when it was my 
last time to have a really good sleep

11
00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:14,068
and that was back in Korea. 


12
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:22,600
So, I thought, like, how am 
I going to bring that space.

13
00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:24,840
And physically it is impossible,

14
00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:28,837
so I came up with this idea 
of transportable fabric.

15
00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:34,800
I want to carry my house, my home,

16
00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:38,073
with me all the time, like a snail.

17
00:01:42,219 --> 00:01:45,240
My house project, Seoul Home/LA Home,

18
00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:50,853
is a replica of the interior of my parent’s house.

19
00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:55,480
I grew up in the house.

20
00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:57,996
It’s a very traditional Korean house.

21
00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:06,979
My father built the exact replica 
of this famous traditional building.

22
00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:23,160
I just didn’t want to sit down and cry for home.

23
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:28,261
I just wanted to more actively 
deal with the issues of longing. 


24
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,680
My mom helped me to find national treasures,

25
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:41,000
basically people who keep traditional techniques,

26
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:42,914
craftsmanship, things like that.

27
00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:50,653
Those ladies taught me how to sew certain seams.

28
00:02:55,640 --> 00:02:58,848
There’s an expression in 
Korea “You walk the house.”

29
00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:02,766
People actually disassemble the house

30
00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:06,676
and then rebuild in a different location.

31
00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:12,680
So I had to make something that 
you could put in a suitcase

32
00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:14,963
and bring it with me all the time.

33
00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:31,160
I was able to discover so many things

34
00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:35,200
when I was measuring and that was really personal

35
00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:37,186
and a kind of emotional experience.

36
00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:45,600
You often finds like little 
marks you did when you were a kid

37
00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:49,403
and that brings all the 
memories of your childhood.

38
00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:52,361
And when you go through that process,

39
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:57,328
the space becomes really a part of you.


40
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:08,270
I really like this idea of my art 
becomes a part of the architecture.

41
00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:19,068
It started from my interest 
in the notion of space, 


42
00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,440
particularly this notion of personal space,

43
00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:25,000
or individual space.

44
00:04:26,602 --> 00:04:29,360
Seoul is very crowded city,

45
00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:32,763
and on the street people bump into each other.

46
00:04:33,417 --> 00:04:35,160
And you know, somebody could just,

47
00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:37,123
you know, hit your shoulder.

48
00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:40,000
And that’s normal.

49
00:04:40,840 --> 00:04:43,070
But I realize that’s different here.

50
00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:50,501
So my perception of this personal 
space has, I think, changed.

51
00:04:58,336 --> 00:05:03,320
It was just for me very natural to 
think about the interpersonal space,

52
00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:05,720
the working at table space between people.

53
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,520
And so that’s how this idea of individual

54
00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:11,579
and the collective came in.

55
00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:37,800
I intentionally chose that pose.

56
00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:41,320
If you look at the figures’ facial expressions,

57
00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:43,720
they don’t look oppressed.

58
00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:47,360
So it has kind of like a positive gesture,

59
00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:51,720
but what they’re doing is 
actually just bearing weight.

60
00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:57,360
And I don’t really make any statement on that,

61
00:05:57,360 --> 00:05:59,324
its just really up to the viewer.

62
00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:07,928
I was asked to do some public 
sculpture in this public place

63
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:12,160
and I started to think about 
what it means, public space,

64
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,261
and what’s the meaning of public art or monument.

65
00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:24,428
I tried to re-think this whole notion of monument.

66
00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:31,560
…make sure it is polished very well.

67
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:34,112
I want it to be very shiny…

68
00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:44,787
Usually, its bigger than life size 
individual, illustrious figures.

69
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:48,872
But what I did was I took it down,

70
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:54,146
and make it smaller and make it into multiples.

71
00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,320
I just want to recognize anonymous,

72
00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:08,256
everyday life, people who pass that space.

73
00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:21,120
For me it was more important actually

74
00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:25,160
coming from Korea to the United States,

75
00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:30,200
and that kind of displacement, 
the cultural displacement,

76
00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:33,760
allowed me to compare two different cultures.

77
00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:36,920
So I was able to actually look back

78
00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:39,880
and think about these issues of the individual

79
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:40,967
and the collective.

80
00:07:44,460 --> 00:07:47,280
I scanned the portraits of sixty students

81
00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:50,880
from my high school year book into the computer.

82
00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:54,160
And I put my face first

83
00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,961
and the rest superimposed on top of each other

84
00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:03,164
so it creates this average of one class.

85
00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:06,623
In a way it’s self-portrait.

86
00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:19,040
I collected yearbooks from 1970 to 1993

87
00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:20,360
or something like that

88
00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:25,000
and I see same face from different year books,

89
00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:28,154
so maybe we are not that unique.

90
00:08:35,880 --> 00:08:40,360
I was curious what we share and what we don’t,

91
00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:44,819
and how this sort of individuals converge. 


92
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:05,440
The whole Korean society is actually 
based upon this kind of militaristic,

93
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:08,267
very hierarchical structure.

94
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:16,640
When you finish your elementary school 
you enter middle school in Korea.

95
00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:18,600
That’s probably the age of 13.

96
00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:20,648
Then you shave your hair.

97
00:09:22,160 --> 00:09:24,240
And then you have uniform

98
00:09:24,240 --> 00:09:31,228
And it came as some kind of 
trauma for most of the kids.

99
00:09:34,680 --> 00:09:36,985
And also you are called by numbers,

100
00:09:37,831 --> 00:09:40,640
you know number 37 or something like that.

101
00:09:41,520 --> 00:09:47,936
My number was 46.

102
00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:53,240
–Ok, ready?…

103
00:09:57,200 --> 00:09:59,920
Koreans, they all have this kind of nostalgia,

104
00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:03,200
this kind of personal attachments to the uniform.

105
00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:07,000
I mean it’s the funny thing about the uniform

106
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,082
because we hated to wear that uniform.

107
00:10:10,120 --> 00:10:14,842
It’s very strict and if you don’t 
follow that uniform, you’re punished.

108
00:10:15,880 --> 00:10:23,634
But we tried our best to differentiate 
our uniform from one another.

109
00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:37,880
From the moment you are born,

110
00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:39,800
you know you are going to be in the military

111
00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:41,920
because everybody has to go.

112
00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:46,279
So that’s a great deal of 
the Korean men’s identity.

113
00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:51,851
I was in the army for almost two years.

114
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:56,320
It was quite important part of my life

115
00:10:56,320 --> 00:11:00,000
and I think it just comes out in my work.

116
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:05,914
I found this army surplus store

117
00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:09,400
and the owner happened to be this old Korean guy.

118
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:13,800
And he have a lot of free dog tags

119
00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:19,280
and allowed me to use this special 
typewriter to type dog tags,

120
00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:21,334
you know letters and numbers.


121
00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,440
Every man talks about his own 
experience in the military,

122
00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:32,960
you know when you have a drink.

123
00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:35,482
And they’re unbelievable stories.

124
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:41,200
I was really good at many things.

125
00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:46,480
I was a sharp shooter and I had 
a black belt before the military

126
00:11:46,480 --> 00:11:50,280
and I could run really fast and 
that was you know very helpful.

127
00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:53,177
But the program was basically push

128
00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:57,960
your psychological and physical to extreme,

129
00:11:57,960 --> 00:12:00,677
so actually you can kill someone.

130
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:09,107
I really sort of experienced 
what it means to be dehumanized.

131
00:12:10,190 --> 00:12:14,885
So for me like everything was 
something to think about.

132
00:12:25,760 --> 00:12:30,568
In my work I can let other 
people see things differently.

133
00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:39,520
I think this desperate sense 
of displacement gives me space

134
00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:42,636
to have some kind of critical 
distance to everything.