Sound words can't be understood through formal study of the language alone. They're felt when you immerse yourself in the culture or lifestyle that becomes a part of you. The Japanese language is abundant with onomatopoeia. Even though I've lived in Japan a long time, sound words are still an uncertain territory. And I think new words are being created every day. Even when I don't know a word I can sometimes connect it to a meaning using the sensations produced by the sounds, which feels like I'm playing with words.

Shamanism has a long history and exists to this day because of its ties to universal emotions such as happiness, sorrow, resentment, and love. It can function as an outlet during struggles with life and death and the burdens of society's absurdities including the divide between rich and poor. It opens up a way to confront reality.

The female experience throughout the history of Korea has been accompanied by physical and mental anguish. This negative aspect of Korean history is one of the driving forces behind my work. To imagine transcending time and space to live in the body of another person is not only one of the key elements that shape my work, but also, it is an opportunity to revisit and understand the ways women have long been viewed and treated in Korea.

Art-making is an extension of the kind of spiritual process that shamans unfold in order to demonstrate the connectedness of the world beyond reality.

Sound words can't be understood through formal study of the language alone. They're felt when you immerse yourself in the culture or lifestyle that becomes a part of you. The Japanese language is abundant with onomatopoeia. Even though I've lived in Japan a long time, sound words are still an uncertain territory. And I think new words are being created every day. Even when I don't know a word I can sometimes connect it to a meaning using the sensations produced by the sounds, which feels like I'm playing with words.

The fabrics I've used in my work are satin and sateen. Sateen is very glossy and far from luxurious. Bright solid colors with too much sheen seem gaudy, pathetic and nostalgia-inducing. Such fabrics are reminiscent of the power of chaos in a shaman's space: overabundant offerings of food on alters, kitschy decorations, provocative shades, vigorous dancing, plaintive singing, absurd fits of crying and laughing, and self-abandonment.

In my work, hair denotes the flow of life prior to being freed from pain. I fill the hair with human struggles such as deep-rooted anxieties, stubborn attachment to life, obsessions, and restrictions. Appearing fluid like a live organism, the hair symbolizes longevity and patience, but when it appears coarse, the hair expresses an energetic life force and freedom.