I looked around my studio. Old dusted ceiling structures, walls that showed accumulated thick layers of paints, and gaps between the walls and floor. They were the surfaces of the space that did not exist to me before, perhaps because I did not need or use them, even though they performed as parts of the building I was in. In every corner of the space, I began to see presences that did not have to remain unnoticed as if they were “secrets”.

I was very secretive. Such the tendency as well as my experiences made me more interested in reasons why some things that happened or existed had to remain as “secrets” than revealing “secrets” themselves. I think the architectural structures resemble the structure of society in many ways; I bring the skins of these structures together to question our relationships with the world.

For instance, in the on-going project Waving to My Foreign Ceiling and Walls, I attempt to interweave interior monologue with the architecture of a space to narrate the invisible boundaries between the meanings of “foreign” and “presence”. I layer live-feed video projections as they are cast on across the floor, ceiling, walls, and the various surface of exhibition space. An audience is invited to interact with the video projections along with their reflections in the live-feed projections and mirrors.

My recent work concerns the visibility of being that differ in each culture and society due to different values judgment and understanding. I explore the inherent and inevitable subject-object [self-other] relationship. Examining what binds boundaries of a body and society together or divide them into “I-you”, “we-they”, and “I-myself", I study how these different positions are recognized and founded in a society. With my work, I try to create various encounters and rearrange those positions to de-center the position of “I”.

Nayeon Yang is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago. She moved to the US from S. Korea in 2006. Experiencing the implied status of a ‘foreigner’ in both countries, she explores the politics of ‘foreign’ and ‘presence’ in global society through her projects.

navelnayeon.com, @navelnayeon