Do Ho Suh: Speculations will be a chance to experience the artist’s reflections on life, the world and his imaginings of the future, as this body of work explores what might be possible in alternate worlds. The exhibition will present themes that Suh has continually explored over the past 20 years—including time, personal space, memory and movement— organized around the overarching concept of “speculation”. In Suh’s work, “speculation” is a word that encompasses aspects of contemplation, inferences, hypotheses, suggestions that relate to interactions between individuals, communities and the environment. Describing his creative activities as a “process of speculation,” the artist uses diverse storytelling approaches to share new possibilities for engaging with the emotional and physical complexities of life.
Throughout his career, Suh has pushed the boundaries of site-specific art by rendering the spaces he has physically inhabited, such as his home or studio, in fabric. Unlike the materials used for traditional, fixed sculptures, Suh’s fabric spaces are made of light, permeable materials that can be easily transported and rebuilt. If his previous works provided an experience of his spaces, Do Ho Suh: Speculations provides viewers an opportunity to experience Suh’s process of contemplating new possibilities. Rather than presenting “completed works,” this exhibition focuses on the process, concepts and investigations that lie at the centre of Suh’s practice. It is a visual representation of Suh’s lines of thought.
The Ground on level 1F introduces Suh’s Bridge Project. “What or where is a ‘Perfect Home’?” To answer this question, Suh originally connected two cities he considered home, New York and Seoul via a bridge. He envisioned his ‘perfect home’ located at the equidistant point between these cities in the Pacific Ocean. With contributions from architects, biologists, physicists, theorists, and industrial designers, Perfect Home: The Bridge Project (2010-2012), combines a speculative reflection on intercontinental travel via an ocean-spanning bridge combined with Suh’s drawings and designs for a house than can withstand the harsh conditions of the Pacific Ocean.
The subsequent new iteration of Suh’s Bridge Project is unveiled at Art Sonje for the first time. For this version, Suh’s current home in London is included. The ‘perfect home’ is now equidistant between Seoul, New York, and London, located in the Chukchi Plateau, near the Arctic Beaufort Sea (coordinates: 77°55’33″N 161°23’49″W). This thought experiment questions what it means to move between different spaces, and examines the potential responses to challenges including climate change, isolation, barriers, and redrawn borders, alongside evolving personal relationships.
Do Ho Suh’s works in Space 1 are speculative in nature as a result of physical, conceptual or practical obstacles. As such, most of his works exist as hypotheses, diagrams, animations, models or writings rather than as fully realized objects. They are continuously changing and evolving in their ‘unfinished’ state. The exhibition’s overarching theme intertwines Suh’s conceptual exploration of the ‘perfect home’, his thoughts and attitude towards public art, and his longstanding interest in liminal, transitory spaces. The exhibition showcases a broad range of Suh’s endeavors over 20 years, from physically improbable challenges like moving a traditional Korean house from Seoul to London, or transporting a place imbued with the artist’s memories via truck, to dismantling and subverting systems involving monuments and power structures.
In Space 2, Do Ho Suh’s Dong In Apartments (2022) and Robin Hood Gardens, Woolmore Street, London E14 0HG (2018) will be shown sequentially. These videos explore time, memory and the meaning of communities through the lens of shared housing complexes that are vanishing due to redevelopment. Recorded and represented in intricate detail through the camera’s slow tempos, these films invite reflection on communal history and the interactions between people and their environments. Do Ho Suh: Speculations evokes poetic reflections on contemporary life through allegorical storytelling that blur the lines between reality and fantasy. By responding to crises arising in the changing relationship between humans and their environment through speculative thought, Suh seeks new possibilities for approaching the complexities of emotion and physical life. This exhibition proposes an alternative perspective that traverses the boundaries between reality and imagination, encouraging viewers to envision another world that might emerge from the intersecting of cultures, transnational conditions, and sustainable futures.
Learn more on the Art Sonje Center website.