Funeral Clothes for the Women_160x130x10cm_monofilament_2018
Minhee Kim explores visual language through numerous materials and methods to express subtle emotions, narratives and memories that cannot be easily verbalised. Her 2018 project shows an attempt to portray the emotional fragility of the lives of ‘Comfort Women’, who were sex slaves during the Second World War. In particular, Minhee has been trying to comprehend the lives and suffering memories, trauma of the victims. Along with her practice, Minhee has widened her perspective from the specific issue of Comfort Woman towards the fragility that all humans experience in their lives.
This work displays traditional Korean funeral attire, worn by the deceased before the body goes into a grave. There is a myth that lives are extended if children prepare parents’ funeral clothes while the parents are alive. Inspired by this idea, Minhee constructed this piece with monofilament which looks like old women's hair, as a prayer for longevity of the 28 Korean survivors alive at the time of construction. It is one of an ongoing series to commemorate all the living victims.
Minhee Kim explores visual language through numerous materials and methods to express subtle emotions, narratives and memories that cannot be easily verbalised. Her 2018 project shows an attempt to portray the emotional fragility of the lives of ‘Comfort Women’, who were sex slaves during the Second World War. In particular, Minhee has been trying to comprehend the lives and suffering memories, trauma of the victims. Along with her practice, Minhee has widened her perspective from the specific issue of Comfort Woman towards the fragility that all humans experience in their lives.
This work displays traditional Korean funeral attire, worn by the deceased before the body goes into a grave. There is a myth that lives are extended if children prepare parents’ funeral clothes while the parents are alive. Inspired by this idea, Minhee constructed this piece with monofilament which looks like old women's hair, as a prayer for longevity of the 28 Korean survivors alive at the time of construction. It is one of an ongoing series to commemorate all the living victims.