Sojung Jun: “I find it intriguing to deal with history or time”

– Sojung Jun was a finalist in the 2023 MMCA Korea Artist Reward. Her jobs are held in collections at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Singapore Art Gallery; Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona (MACBA); Ulsan Gallery of Art; M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong; National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul; Leeum, Samsung Gallery of Art, Seoul; and National Gallery of Art, Osaka.

The leading motifs in Jun’s work– migrant employees, adoptees, refugees and the aesthetically damaged– look like marginalised figures within her pieces– the crazy, the weak, the expatriations and the castaways– going across via 15th-century Europe, the modern cities of Tokyo and Gyeongseong (the name of Seoul during Japanese colonial rule) in the very early 20th century and into the 21st century. These figures are revealed as the overlooked entities left behind by the pressures of modernisation and homogenisation.

It is the artist’s demand for a critique of “one’s very own work that has not yet been developed yet to be made in the future”.

A selection of Korea’s a lot of amazing modern musicians have been selected for this year’s Korean Artists Today, a long-lasting task which will certainly see an accomplice of musicians picked annually for their prospective to make it on the global stage. See the complete list here.

“I find it appealing to take care of history or time, and to use video as a way to deconstruct the straight temporality or rhythms of development that I wonder about,” Jun states. Lately the artist has expanded her practice by using technical tools such as drones, virtual reality and boosted reality, mentioning that “media devices supply an enhanced room to cogitate on the present”.

Drawing on interviews, classical messages and historic data, Sojung Jun summons poets, professional dancers, artists and historic figures to deconstruct well-known narratives and check out a nonlinear feeling of time and space covering the actual and the fictional.

Composing and releasing have likewise end up being a speculative part of Jun’s technique. Her work EUQITIRC (2016) rescinds traditional important techniques through a reversed time order– the title is “critique” led to in reverse. It is the musician’s need for a review of “one’s very own work that has actually not yet been created yet to be made in the future”.

In a similar way, for Jun’s current video clip work Syncope (2023 ), she invited doubters to engage with the operate in its inceptive phases. In contrast to the conventional method of assessing finished artworks, Syncope provides a daring experiment in criticism, conducted completely on Jun’s terms.

– Sojung Jun was a finalist in the 2023 MMCA Korea Musician Reward. Her jobs are held in collections at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Singapore Art Gallery; Gallery of Contemporary Art Barcelona (MACBA); Ulsan Gallery of Art; M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; and National Gallery of Art, Osaka.

Jun studied media art at Yonsei University Grad School of Interaction and Arts after graduating from the sculpture department at Seoul National College. Her method has progressed from a first period of explore theatrical phases and a curiosity with the relocating photo to performance-based operate in an increased documentary format and items where reality and online space exist side-by-side.