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Ghahyun Min

Ghahyun Min is a contemporary Seoul and London based visual and installation artist. She is known for the use of the iconography on graphical user interfaces in her work, imbued with visual narratives and significance. Ghahyun's work frequently addresses invisible systemic violence and modern individuals. She was born in Seoul, Korea. She completed her B.A in Korean Language and Literature at Han-Yang University, Seoul, B.F.A in Product Design at Parsons School of Design, New York, and M.A in Print at the Royal College of Art, London.

Show Location: Battersea campus: Dyson & Woo Buildings, First floor and mezzanine

Ghahyun Min-statement

The world I see is a stage of invisible violence. A clever, civilized violence hides behind the trophy named progress, disabling us to recognize the world properly. Under the guise of transparency, violence is inconspicuous as it permeates in the system of a digital media society. In other words, modern violence built upon the surveillance capitalism temps us with the convenience and enjoyment of the digital media technology. Behind the curtain, however, lies the dark shadow digging deep into human vulnerabilities, monitoring human experiences and acting as a means of manipulation. I always had that interest in studying the intrinsic nature of violence that is seemingly invisible and modern individuals who internalize violence.

My work creates visual narratives out of something that is quite familiar but horrible in our contemporary experience. This work has an elegiac aspect, but also cerebral and literate qualities. I've explored the juxtaposition of images, materials, and concepts to acknowledge the invisible or hidden properties of the world. Specifically, I try to create comparison between two qualities of materials or images such as transparency/solidity, lightness/heaviness, smoothness/roughness, and elevation/demotion, to visualize the form of anonymous, covert systemic violence.

The Mickey glove icon plays a significant role in my work. It manifests a distorted reality of the world. The countless surplus behavior of leaving behind clicks in cyberspace gives power to a force of evil that aims to automate humans, not machines. In my work, these icons represent new, modern-order leeches feeding on all aspects of human experience including labor.

I hope that It will give the audience a moment of pause to carefully consider the way we view the world, to question received ways of seeing from the digital platforms, and to attend closely to perception and bodily experience.


In the Swarm_full
In the Swarm_full
In the Swarm _ Detail1
In the Swarm _ Detail1
In the Swarm_detail2
In the Swarm_detail2
In the Swarm_detail3
In the Swarm_detail3
In the Swarm _ full
In the Swarm _ full
In the Swarm, metal, hardcore crushed stones, electric cables, silk screen on tinted acrylics
In the Swarm, metal, hardcore crushed stones, electric cables, silk screen on tinted acrylics

In the Swarm is about a digital storm of information caused by Silicon Valley's ethos of 'Move fast and break things'. Today's information society is built on a network of continuous vibrant communications and has transformed the world into a digital panopticon. 'In the Swarm' depicts individual traces that have been infiltrated by the wind of information, turned transparent and shattered. For this imagery, I translate an intangible, 2-dimensional image of the icon into a physical object, which has a weight of human significance, while erasing or dismantling all forms of individual diversity.


Medium:

metal, hardcore crushed stones, electric cables, silk screen on tinted acrylics

Size:

110cm*40cm*200cm
A harbinger of ill tidings _right panel
A harbinger of ill tidings _right panel
A harbinger of ill tidings _ left panel
A harbinger of ill tidings _ left panel
A harbinger of ill tidings _ detail1
A harbinger of ill tidings _ detail1
A harbinger of ill tidings_detail2
A harbinger of ill tidings_detail2
A harbinger of ill tidings
A harbinger of ill tidings
A harbinger of ill tidings
A harbinger of ill tidings
A harbinger of ill tidings, mixed media, digital print on somerset paper
A harbinger of ill tidings
A harbinger of ill tidings

A harbinger of ill tidings portrays a society in which technology functions as a tool of capitalism, serving the privileged and ignoring the historically underprivileged, thus exacerbating social imbalance instead of offering a counterforce. It is a society that abides by an ethos of disruption, thus affirming the power and control of a select few, while aiding in the suppression of all others.

Medium:

mixed media, digital print on somerset paper

Size:

160cm*220cm
The things that they carried 1
The things that they carried 1
The things that they carried 1 _ detail
The things that they carried 1 _ detail
The things that they carried, mixed media, digital print on kozo paper
The things that they carried 1
The things that they carried 1Digital media, especially social media, isn't a tool waiting to be used. It has its own goals, and it has its own means of pursuing them by using our psychology against us. The things that we carried today are the sensate, computational, connected puppets that renders, monitors, computes, and modifies human behavior. In other words, technical devices and systems shape our culture and the environment, alter patterns of human activity, and influence who we are and how we live.

Medium:

mixed media, digital print on kozo paper

Size:

100cm*150cm
Hello World 1
Hello World 1
Hello World
Hello World

The prevalence of digital media enables information to be gathered by its users click button. Rear Window is a commentary on social values and provokes its audience to examine habits of their own, especially in a world where sensitive information is at our fingertips. The danger of an irruption of the real does not exist for digital window. Digital window screens off from the real more effectively. It is making images seem more attractive than reality itself. Reality however strikes us as defective. We are producing images in enormous quantity by means of digital media. Such massive production can be also interpreted as a reaction of defense and flight. When we faced with reality which strikes us as something broken or imperfect, we run away into the realm of images.

Medium:

Latex Print on Mirror Silver Vinyl

Size:

120cm*160cm