Curator Elaine Kim is a Sydney-based Curator and Artist of Korean background. Elaine has a studio at Kil.n.it Experimental Ceramics Studio in Glebe, Sydney. She is currently studying Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership at UNSW where she got a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours degree. She curated "The Third Space" in 2021, "Ceramics and Emotions" and "Daily Rhythms" in 2022. Elaine is Finalist in Gosford Art Prize, Penrith Show 2017(Second Prize), Jenny Birt Award 2020(Highly Commended), and Shelly Simpson Prize 2021(Finalist). She has exhibited her artwork in Hazlehurst Gallery, AD Space, UNSW Gallery, Gaffa Gallery, and Kerrie Lowe Gallery in Sydney. She sees the world through two cultures Korea and Australia, giving her perhaps a broader scope with how she perceives the particularly visual world. Her practice is led by a series of experiments that aim to destroy traditional art structures of time and space. Elaine explores the notion that all cultures are hybrid, and there is no longer a pure obedient culture that preserves and thrives on its own. She seeks to express the moment when the boundary between obedience and hybridity breaks down, through a process of translation of her cultures.
A Needle Woman
I am an Asian female immigrant from Korea living in Australia. My life takes place in a space between cultures, an exchange between Australia and Korea. While living as an immigrant in Australia, I was fortunate to experience a variety of cultures other than Korean culture, but the strangeness that I had to accept was that there were too many cultures from other countries, and these cultures collided with each other and confused my identity. When I saw 'A Needle Woman' by Kimsooja's video performance artwork at the Art Gallery of NSW in Australia, I thought her work referred to the current era in which different cultures intersect and react.
Kimsooja becomes 'A Needle Woman' and plays a needle connecting people and spaces. People in her inner-city busily brush past her, but she becomes a needle, piercing them.
The needle is expressed as Kimsooja herself, and her body is used as material for the viewer's self-reflection. She showed through her work that she strives to weave people with the world. Whether Korean or Australian or different skin, colour, and languages were not a problem in her work. She presented the necessity of approaching these discriminatory problems of the world as historical and structural problems. She showed in her work that she makes an effort to weave the world and people together with threads. The journey of her work continues across borders, embracing the current cultural differences, immigrants, nomads, and marginalised minorities in society.
I am an Asian female immigrant from Korea living in Australia. My life takes place in a space between cultures, an exchange between Australia and Korea. While living as an immigrant in Australia, I was fortunate to experience a variety of cultures other than Korean culture, but the strangeness that I had to accept was that there were too many cultures from other countries, and these cultures collided with each other and confused my identity. When I saw 'A Needle Woman' by Kimsooja's video performance artwork at the Art Gallery of NSW in Australia, I thought her work referred to the current era in which different cultures intersect and react.
Kimsooja becomes 'A Needle Woman' and plays a needle connecting people and spaces. People in her inner-city busily brush past her, but she becomes a needle, piercing them.
The needle is expressed as Kimsooja herself, and her body is used as material for the viewer's self-reflection. She showed through her work that she strives to weave people with the world. Whether Korean or Australian or different skin, colour, and languages were not a problem in her work. She presented the necessity of approaching these discriminatory problems of the world as historical and structural problems. She showed in her work that she makes an effort to weave the world and people together with threads. The journey of her work continues across borders, embracing the current cultural differences, immigrants, nomads, and marginalised minorities in society.
