Yu Jiwon’s work traces memories and histories attached to a particular place or object through sculptures, installations, and lens-based media. Terminable Destiny 2023, conceived for the 14th Gwangju Biennale, builds on the artist’s ongoing research into the contemporary conditions that propel relentless modes of production. Yu sees such an ‘illusion of progress’, achieved at the expense of environmental destruction, as most evident when it comes to urban development. Traversing the personal and the political, Terminable Destiny is at once the artist’s immediate response to the natural and built environment that surrounds him, and a reflection on structural systems in which we are deeply rooted. Instead of enacting direct interventions into sites of (de)construction as with his previous works, Yu introduces a wall-bound installation that is deceptively architectural and contemporary. The work appears rigid and robust but it is composed of materials such as carboard boxes, cement, and paint. Light and modular, it can also be easily assembled and re-assembled depending on the structural character of a given space. The re-purposing of not only materials or substances, but also built structures, seems to question the conventional logic of production.