Statement
I create works on the themes of “play” and “development.”
When observing children who have not yet acquired an awareness of “rules,” “social norms,” or community consciousness, I see them touch and examine the objects before them, stack them, arrange them, and knock them down. What is the driving force behind these primal actions?
According to Homo Ludens, “play” precedes “culture” and is an essential element of all human cultures.
I believe that “play” also has an incubation period before it fully emerges, and that within the continuous acts that take place during this time lie processes such as the acquisition of rules and aesthetic sensibilities, the creation of space, and the substitution of one object for another through imagination. Within these processes, there is an unregulated presence of impulses, discriminatory attitudes, and desires—elements that will later be restrained by an awareness of rules and norms.
By depicting the repeated acts of arranging objects in real space, creating fictional spaces through self-imposed rules, and then destroying them, I seek to reveal both the essence of the human being before becoming a social animal and the process of acquiring social norms—both of which I find embodied in the “play” of children.