I try to understand things through making that I cannot fully articulate yet. For example, I am deeply interested in how time acts upon the body, the suspended feeling that comes with migration, and the state of being pulled between different cultures, systems, and emotions. To me, these are not abstract ideas, but very real sensations that exist in both the body and the mind.

It often feels like I can only begin to understand them by turning them into material, space, image, or some kind of concrete structure. Through that process, I gradually come to see why I am drawn to these questions and how they relate to my own experience. Many times, the work seems to know what I am thinking before I do, and I find myself slowly catching up with it.

I make art because I cannot pretend not to notice certain feelings. Rather than allowing them to remain vague and unsettled within me, art gives me a way to transform them into something that can truly exist in the world.

I think it really depends on my state of mind at the time. Sometimes I approach a work in a very rational and structured way, moving carefully from research to sketching to making. Other times, I begin much more intuitively, following a feeling before I fully understand it. For me, art is both an entrance and an exit. It is a way of entering into emotions and questions I have not yet figured out, and at the same time, a way of letting them out by giving them a concrete form.

When I run into material or technical limitations, I usually step back and ask what the work really needs. In the case of Fool’s Hour, I originally wanted to make it through 3D printing, but I found that the size limitations of the process restricted the effect I was looking for. So I changed the material and used acrylic instead, which allowed the work to have a stronger visual presence. For me, this kind of adaptation is an important part of the process. I do not see it as compromising the work, but as finding the most suitable way to realize it.

My work is an epistemological exploration that often engages with myth, ritual, and systems of belief—so I consider different interpretations not only inevitable, but essential. Observing how viewers respond, especially when their reactions diverge based on personal backgrounds such as religious belief or cultural experience, allows me to understand how visual language resonates across boundaries. For instance, when a work draws from sacred spatial structures, those with religious affiliations often respond very differently from those without. I find these moments of contrast generative—they often inform the conceptual direction of future works.

Once the work is completed and presented in an exhibition, I see it as a shared encounter. The audience brings their own world to the work, just as I brought mine. Rather than believing that the artwork belongs solely to the artist or to the viewer, I see it as a site of exchange—where worlds overlap, interpretations multiply, and new meanings emerge through engagement.

I hope viewers do not feel the need to understand the work immediately. More than a clear explanation, I hope they first sense something emotionally or psychologically, something unstable, suspended, or caught between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

My work often deals with time, migration, and emotional transition, so I hope people enter it first through feeling, through space, material, rhythm, or atmosphere. If the work leaves them with a sense of tension, disorientation, or quiet recognition, then it has done something meaningful.

Yes, definitely. My background in product design has influenced the way I work with materials quite a lot. I think it gave me a strong sense of method and structure, but it also made me realize that I sometimes depend too much on design logic when making art. In some cases, I become too cautious with materials and not bold enough to experiment.

At the same time, my two years of studying abroad have had a major impact on how I think conceptually. For me, that experience felt like an escape from the more traditional East Asian timeline of life. It made me question the idea of time as something fixed, linear, or universal. Since then, I have become increasingly interested in time as something unstable, flexible, and even nonexistent in the way we usually imagine it. That has deeply shaped the emotional and conceptual direction of my work.

I think I would first want to deal with the exploitation behind artistic labor and the survival conditions of artists. For me, it is hard to talk about art without talking about how artists actually live and work. Ideally, I would want every artist and art worker to be able to create in a safe, healthy, and respectful environment.

I have imagined things like starting a grant, giving $1,000 each month to three artists, and organizing a group show every quarter. I have also thought about creating some kind of organization that could help artists claim unpaid fees and protect them from being taken advantage of by galleries or institutions. Maybe it sounds far away, but to me, it would mean building a structure of care and protection around artistic practice, not just celebrating the final work.

I realized that although I could cross national borders quite quickly, my sense of belonging, cultural identity, and understanding of self did not move at the same pace. The body may enter a new environment, while emotions, memories, and inner structures remain elsewhere. Through this asynchrony, I came to see that cultural identity and legal status are not the same, and can often exist in tension.

For me, transnational movement is never simply a passage from one place to another. It can leave a person in a prolonged state of suspension, constantly shifting between languages, systems, social norms, and emotional realities. In that process, the self becomes less stable, and belonging becomes something continuously negotiated rather than a fixed destination.

My design background definitely plays a role in that process. It helps me translate abstract questions into clearer visual structures. I usually do not begin with a fully formed image, but with a question or a vague feeling. As I build the image, certain forms and related elements gradually enter the work and make the idea more concrete.

So this clarity is not always something I intentionally maintain. It often comes more subconsciously, as part of how I construct an image. At the same time, I am aware that it can also become a limitation. While it helps me give shape to complex ideas, it can sometimes make me rely too much on control or recognizability. In that sense, my design background is both a support and something I continue to question.