Para-sito
Hong Myung Seop, Para-sito
Hong Myung Seop, Para-sito
Hong Myung Seop, Para-sito
Hong Myung Seop, Para-sito
Para-parasite-site
When I thought about “Ceramics in Contemporary Art,” I was interested in the idea of the incarnation of contemporary art in the primordial firing of clay, one of the oldest cultural practices in human history.
I was deeply concerned with how I could use the encounter between water, earth, and fire in the age of contemporary image culture, and how the conventional technique of clay firing could establish a bridge between itself and the contemporary artistic situation. Could it be a temporary means to my own work?
The most important thing for me was that I would have the opportunity to create a ceramic object that I wanted to express in terms of ceramics but had always been prevented from doing so because of my lack of ceramic technique.
I have long been interested in a phenomenon which I call meta-pattern that involves similarity between totally different species. So I made a ceramic work that has the shape of an enlarged walnut kernel. Through this work I wanted to evoke the animal spirit because I saw the walnut kernel as resembling the human brain. To me, the concept of animal spirit has the same validity as the idea that plants also have spirit. Furthermore, the camouflaging of animals, plants, and human beings has the same value in the sense of cultural perspective and the ecological process.
However, I was unable to realize my idea because it was not easy to render the actual shape through my preliminary sketch alone. There was also a gap between my idea and conventional ceramic working processes. The next best way of achieving it was by using a rotating disk and by finding a method of my own.
So I set my first task as solving the conflict between the range of general ceramic products and my own idea. In general, I have been considering a problem of “site,” “here and there,” “disguised, faint site brought by parasite”. I call this “para-parasite-site.”
Through this process of thinking, I was able to find a point of contact in the seminal expansion of eggs. This also produced a dichotomized parasitical structure that I could achieve with the help of the potters. Ten egg pieces will reflect and memorize anonymous places where they will be parasites.
The surface of each work evokes landscape with visual humor, the moonlight, and the sunlight of the Albisola seashore. Egg fluid resembling sap or water will be actually fried in a kiln, thus becoming a sacrifice to the Biennale of Ceramics in Contemporary Art.
Hong Myung Seop
Para-sito by Hong Myung Seop was made in Albisola in 2003 during the 2nd Biennial of Ceramics in Contemporary Art.
