Inner Violin Solo (2020)

Violin shaped form
Inner Violin Solo, 67 x 27x 11 cm/26.38″ x 10.63″ x 4.33″, photo: Aleks Slota
Violin shaped form
Inner Violin Solo, 67 x 27x 11 cm/26.38″ x 10.63″ x 4.33″, photo: Aleks Slota
Violin shaped form

This soft sculpture is being used in a performance installation, called Exit Woman Outside Person (出嫁外人) and evokes a traditional shine where ancestry memorial rituals are performed. These traditional rites are still practiced during Lunar New Year and Korean Thanksgiving. My nontraditional shrine, made for my unknown female biological ancestors will display various seemingly incongruous objects like the violin and flamboyant trinkets. Inspired by the collaborative work of Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys, in this work I seek to negotiate my slippery cultural heritage as a transnational Korean adopted to a German/Euro-American family.