Hyoju Cheon
Bio: Hyoju Cheon, (b. Korea), now lives and works in New York. She is an explorer and researcher who collects movements. Hyoju's work is a process of recording movements and capturing or analyzing the moment to explore the outcome of those movements. Through this, she hopes to find a greater understanding of society and how people change based on their lived experience.
hyojucheon.com
Instagram: @hyo_ju_cheon
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: My body moving in the house, my body moving in the studio.
My body taking up space in spaces.
My body is mechanized by repeated actions, drawing a certain trajectory.
My body is automated, but not mechanized, it's somewhere between those two options. My body is not a machine but is like a machine that struggles against the implied boredom of routine. Through the symbolic actions of my performance I imbue joy into the repetitive movements of my daily tasks. I agonize about the interaction of my body with the soft plastic chair, or squeeze myself through the donut-like tunnel. How is sitting in it different or similar to sitting in a “real” chair or walking through a real tunnel? What is the state of my mind in these spaces? I observe it.
It doesn't matter which specific spaces are represented by the symbolic objects in my symbolic journey. What matters now is the way in which my energy is affected, sometimes positively like the social opening up in a cafe or at times negatively like a contamination that comes from a crowded and claustrophobic space. It becomes more important whether there is inward flow of energy or outward and how much energy I am using, how full or how depleted I might become. In the performance, I grab objects to care for them, to learn, or wear, or nurse… before my body moves to the next performative station.
When I don’t touch the thing it remains as an object. If I hold or wear the objects, they become subjects. The object repeatedly experiences an equivalent of being a subject by interacting with my body in an object state.
I imagine movement with traces of orbit drawn by my body. I consider how repeated body movements are restricted by my thoughts, the language we use. The mundane movements are made absurd within the context of the performance by carrying out the expected repetitive movements of everyday life.
With this performance I seek to go against the limits that we experience, such as social norms, societal shaming and parental control.
L to R: How can we measure our sigh (90” x 15” x 8", Steel pipe, wood, paper bag, pulley system, 2022); Slow down to nothing (Dimension variable, Plater casting, sanding machine, metal and vinyl, 2022)
First Year Exhibition
Trajectory of my body (Dimension variable, Vinyl, plywood, acrylic rod, wheel, plaster, moss, rubber hose, 2021)
