BONA PARK

Whistlers started through an association with WING, an organisation supporting the resilience of women exiting prostitution. Established in 1953 to care for war orphans and widows, WING has been supporting women who have left the sex trade and those who have suffered violence since 1996. Since Park happened to read an interview of the CEO of the organization and wrote about them, she has been connected to them by eating meals together and conducting workshops. Park explains that Whistlers has to do not with an ‘outside’ that is separate from her but with an ‘outside’ that is part of her which blossoms as friendship with women.

Whistlers (2023), which shares the same title as the exhibition, is a video work that Park produced at a WING workshop with the women last year. It shows a performance of serial whistling, as 12 women standing side-by-side take turns inhaling and exhaling each other’s breaths. Sharing breath turns into a poem, and it gets embroidered on t-shirts donated by the artist’s friends in How to Whistle (2024). phwee phwee fweet fweet (2024) is a video work in which two actors read six letters that Park’s friends including actors wrote to their friends, whispering an emotional intimacy that transcends language and logic. This intimacy continues in Mountains (2024), where participants at the 2023 WING workshop depicted what they cherished, held in their hands.

Many of Park’s works and projects question social systems, including art, economy and history by uncovering the various structures and labors therein. By juxtaposing art with social conditions, her practice creates awkward situations that confuse and upend the boundary between art and daily life. The box in a plastic bag (La boîte - en - sac plastique) (2010) is a performance in which the participating artists and museum staff who contributed for making exhibitions at the private view carry around plastic bags of groceries their usual dinner habits. In I tell what you believe 1 (2013) is her performance in which invigilators walk in the museum, wearing tap dance shoes written ‘I tell what you believe’ throughout the exhibition, making cracking noises in the museum. She has also collaborated with foley artists who work behind cameras to produce images. Through these works, Park blurred the boundary between art and life and highlighted labor and collaboration in art, which led to uncomfortable questions about the system.

Bona Park’s solo exhibition, Friends in Gallery Chosun in 2013 focused on the people she collaborated with, such as a performer for playing piano and a shoe-shiner who shone her shoes for the opening. On the other hand, the exhibition, Whistlers in 2024 is more about the trust, friendship, and intimacy that emerge through the process of collaboration.