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.

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.