GALLERY MoMo

GALLERY MoMo Projects is pleased to represent a solo exhibition by KIM Insook entitled “Ari, A letter from Seongbuk-dong” from Saturday, October 30 through Saturday, November 20th. 
 
Based on the idea that “diversity is universal,” KIM Insook highlights the “individual” daily life, memory, history, tradition, community, and family in her works. She suggestively questioned what the tradition and rituals are in the works such as “Sweet hours” and “SAIESO: between Two Koreans and Japan,” which she captures the daily lives of Zainichi Korean living in Japan, as well as “Between Breads and Noodles,” which she focuses on Koreans in Germany and people who immigrated in Germany. In addition, she represents “The Real Wedding Ceremony” which expresses the expansion of families across countries through photographs, video, and performance. 

 

In this exhibition, we will show a series of a project, "Ari, A letter from Seongbuk-dong" that shows Ari, a girl wearing a folk costume and walking lightly, in a nostalgic landscape. The exhibition has a series of works that captures the disappearing town while KIM and the girl Ari visited Seongbuk-dog, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, where gentrification occurred in 2015. After receiving invitation letters from shops and cultural facilities in Seongbuk-dong, Ari visited the places and experienced various things. The back shot of Ari captured by KIM seems to be a mysterious existence that guides the viewer to the future. Despite using photography, the composition of the works is like painting or a landscape that you do not know where you are, and it makes you be somewhere in a fantasy world. 
Representing the series in Roppongi, where some of the best skyscrapers in Tokyo line with shrines, schools, and old stores, it is easy to imagine the recent town of Seongbouk-dong, where many traditional Korean houses have decreased and have already been transformed into commercial facilities.
Another project,  “House to Home,” in which KIM worked on the theme of Family Expansion in Seongbuk-dong, is exhibited in TOKAS Hongo, mainly video works. KIM has done these different projects in a town and has exhibitions for each project in two different spaces where have different histories and personalities, Roppongi and Hongo. Going around two towns for visiting shows, and recording them on this catalog, will give the viewers great opportunities to realize preservation and update and consider the change of traditions and cultures.  

 

KIM Insook was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1978. After receiving her M.A. from the Graduate School of Arts of Hansung University in the Western Painting, Photography and Images course, she had lived in Seoul for fifteen years. Currently, she is based in both Seoul and Tokyo. KIM Insook has had a solo exhibition at Gwangju Museum of Art in Korea in 2008 and has joined group exhibitions at Daegu photo Biennale (Korea), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea), Mori Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (Ansan, Korea), TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC ART MUSEUM (Tokyo, Japan) and others. She also has been accepted from the residency programs such as the Cultural Office of the City of Düsseldorf (Germany). Her works are in the collection of SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART (Korea), TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC ART MUSEUM (Japan), Gwangju Museum of Art (Korea), and others.