Category Archives: Projects

ISU CHOI – FROM ASH TO ASH


2015-current 3D Design and Craft, University of Brighton, BA(Hors) Brighton, UK
2006-2012 Arts and Crafts, Sookmyung Women’s University, BFA, Seoul, Korea

2011 KDB Mirae Asset Galley, Seoul, Korea
2010 Daegu Art fair, Daegu, Korea GEISAI Art fair, Tokyo, Japan
2009 Degree Show, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
2009 New York Art Expo, New York city, NY, USA

 

YOUR FAILED PROJECT


Self over time. Collection of possessions acting as a diary and a testament to the every day. Receipts show small transactions but also provide insight into daily life. Similar to an archaeologist. Felt different connection to the different items. There was a sense of a panorama – memories of wearing and using the items – reflected my bad days and good days. The process was adapted from cremation, cleaning and shrouding a dead body, as folding well the trousers before burning.


How do we come to understand The Self? Or Our-self? Both incorporating change but also a sense of ‘Who We Are’. The materials left – the different structures, textures and even colour. The ash has infinite potentiality as form of powder. It takes an important role both in my practice and my life. Firstly, the process is to make ash; this burning is like a gift, to cure wounds. My absorption in the process recovers time. Secondly, its end result.


One of life’s few certainties is that we will die. Like we are born – alone and “empty”. Our life’s possessions become meaningless. Ash Wednesday is, the first day of the Lent with fasting, to commemorate the death of Jesus and the day is my father’s death.


From Ash To Ash. This idea was echoed throughout – fire symbolising both life and death. At times of great significance ritual helps us to understand and to process. We create and reproduce meaning through ceremony. The ceremony and process helped connect points in my life. My father’s death and how I came to use ash as my signature material during whilst I processed my father’s death.


other (describe) All of them. Technically lots of improvement needed.


I have no idea for being rejected; guessing they simply might not have liked my project, or too difficult to understand for them. Personally, some reasons for failing were in respects of technics as one of the aims of the project was creating my own material.I learnt and found from trials and failures that obviously has potential, and I should have been more bold and flexible with such as scale, method and consistency.


I prepared and carried out the project for more than three years, so it got me emptiness, frustration and feeling let myself down because it means a lot to me and I cannot just let go. As my background is craft, specialised in metal, I am trying to get my material back on track and looking for any chances to make them collaborated. Failure does not mean that finishes – mean there are other potentials that I could not have seen yet.


Although it left me unpleasure feeling, I had to make my step forward. Returning to conventional material such as metals and polymers mixed with fabrics allowed me to have pause and look my ex-project with fresh eyes. Like mentioned earlier, as I am trying to get my material on track, my eyes have been on methods and techniques of other materials to adapt. I was mentally little down for a bit, but it did not have a massive impact on my other progress.

 

ON E-TEXTILES


I am not particularly interested in one material but also everything; I mean, everything. Part of my ex-project was making ‘fabric-ish material.’ My interest is a contrast of technology and analogue, and tradition and contemporary – but some points of e-textiles project among them impress me, a juxtaposition of innovation and obsolescence, and challenges and concerns, which allow me to think out of a box, in the sense of an internal variation.


Essentially and straightforwardly it gives fun and joy to the world, like Christmas. Because it could be regarded as wearable AI, light version of robot or a connection between robot and human beings. This is not about welcoming the ‘new’ world – so that it should not be biased onto one side. Also perspectives will be various, all it depends on what material would be collaborated in the project along with technologies.


First of all, I consider to ask what are your spectrum of technology.I used technology part in my works a lot, but had my interest going down as boom of technology, ironically. They are still part of my projects but not mainstream. The more societies develop technologically and comfortably, the more ethics and moralities are stressed. In these respects, it should be careful to present outcomes and to adapt in our daily lives as not only sustainable but also environmental aspects.