Hong Lee Hyun Sook

Born 1958 | Mungyeong
Lives and works Seoul

Hong Lee Hyun Sook uses various media to create work that addresses a free, subjective body that challenges patriarchal society and its gaze. Through the new video work What You Are Touching Now—Wolchulsan Sirubong 2023 created for the 14th Gwangju Biennale, Hong Lee encounters Wolchulsan mountain range in South Jeolla province, while making the observation that ‘a work generally begins by meeting a place’. Many mountain-goers from Gwangju go to Sirubong in Wolchulsan National Park, like the climbers of Seoul go to Insubong of the Bukhansan mountain range. The artist records and recounts the rock faces that she encounters while climbing up the steep mountaintop of Sirubong, illustrating a sort of tangible map. She touches with her hands and senses the subtle bulges and rough textures of the mountain. Based on tangible feelings, she focuses on the temperature of the rocks, their smells, the rubbing or brushing sounds made between rocks and human bodies, dust and other living entities of Wolchulsan. The video speaks to the limits and potentials of visualising palpable sensations as the camera’s vision repeatedly loses and regains its vision. What You Are Touching Now 2020, features the seated rock- carved Buddha—which you can find at Seunggasa Temple in Bukhansan after climbing up 108 steps. Hong Lee similarly caresses the carved Buddha with her camera lens and narrated voice instead of her hands. With this work, the artist attempts to imagine a way of contacting the unreachable being.

Hong Lee Hyun Sook, What You Are Touching Now— Wolchulsan Sirubong 2023. Single-channel video, colour, sound. 7 mins, 34 secs. Courtesy the artist, Commissioned by the 14th Gwangju Biennale. Film still. Image courtesy the artist