Kiosk of comfort
First, my general subjects of art work and the most important value are Man, society and life. It’s such a great happiness for me to have constant questions and conversation about these subjects. After I graduated from my university, I had longings of “Human and Life” so I’ve prepared for my portfolio with a general subject called ‘comfort’.
Before my explanation of portfolio, I want to say background which related with my art works. After Korean war back in 1950s, my country has developed a lot dramatically and in the meantime, design and art have been considered as business like something that can make places pretty, the way rich people can show off their wealth, and something that can make products sell well.
Talking about such subjects ‘Man, society and life’ has been considered as a useless thing and as nothing that we can’t make any money from it. For example, it has been dominant for many people to think about art and design as business. Moreover, so also designers have been treated as machines that create the final decoration. These tragic situations, that are commonly accepted as normal, make us — not only designers but also all of us in the society — exhausted and threat the way we communicate. The meaning of communication, in my opinion, should be more about finding directions to human’s lives. Therefore, we definitely need comfort to find the directions. Thus I suggest feeling in affluent circumstances comfortably for a moment in a space like the Kiosk.
Korea, like the rest of the world, has trend of healing in current society. Korea is a healing generation. In this day and age, there is an overflow of terms related to healing, comforting, and consoling, which naturally become commercialized in society. This shows that society is suffocating and could also be an evidence that we are exhausted. Healing, however, could be just be a ephemism for our stark reality. Therefore, these words should be examined further to give healing its intended effect on society. Comforting without words is essential to healing. This nonprofit kiosk would be a healing center of paper and pencils, recycling containers and candles, where silence resides. This work is based on my experience. I am most often too tired to speak even a word, and need a place to relax. Also, even though I am not religious, I want a spiritual space. This help that I could decide to make the form of a simple frame facility. You could come with an empty container or empty-handed. Comfort would come within the silent atmosphere. This was quite an enjoyable and rewarding project where I dreamed that there would be a healing light at the end of a sorrow tunnel.
Some say that it’s almost impossible to speak when you are too tired, right? Anyone could come in this kiosk for healing. You could come here with any containers; doesn’t matter if they are new, or old or recycled or even nothing! Action of giving the containers is insignificant but the activity could give a sense of participation. This is because it would comfort myself and could comfort a person comes next. It’s for us to give comfort to each other simply just through these candle objects. I wanted to create spiritual atmosphere because I think that the atmosphere would give suitable images for healing and comfort, especially for public. Candles are suitable objects for this.
