HONG YOUNG IN

Following Young In Hong: Five Acts and a Monologue at Art Sonje Center earlier this spring, the exhibition unveils approximately twenty new works—including sculptures, relief works, mixed-media embroideries, and patchworks—that originate from sound and unfold through image, tactility, and movement. On the opening day, 20 August at 6pm, a one-hour violin performance will be presented, featuring an improvised interpretation of the three-dimensional music scores.

In the past several years, Hong has collected sounds that captivated her throughout personal journeys. Amateur Composer reorchestrates these sonic fragments into codes of color, image, and texture. Recordings of animals and birds, insects, rivers, wind, and church bells summon memories more vividly for the artist than photographs. She notes that attentive listening to sound allows one to escape dominant structures, namely linguistic and anthropocentric systems, and to apprehend the world differently.

The main gallery features works that translate collected sounds—including animal voices—into musical notation or revive endangered handcraft techniques such as ttwari (coil weaving) as a compositional process. In Sonata: Durumi and I, the artist, carrying a load on her head in the traditional manner, faces a life-size crane. As an endangered species that lives in flocks, the crane voices in chorus and signals solidarity through dance. Focusing on this non-verbal communication, Hong visualizes abstract harmonies and movements across the stave. Alongside such endangered animals, the artist brings the voices of historically marginalized subjects central to her practice—such as female laborers—through 3D scores and instrumental sculpture. Interwoven with thread, rope, wire, fabric, and ceramics, these works remain in a latent state, awaiting reinterpretation through performance.

In the Annex, Hong presents wall-based works and small sculptures from various periods of her practice. Patterns for Morton Feldman is a patchwork series exploring color and form as rhythmic structure, while Symbiotic Composition is an early 2D score series that transposes recorded sounds into material and image. The Monument series reimagines toys designed for animal play at a monumental scale, greeting viewers as speculative models for future public art that might reflect on human-centered urban space.

From preliminary drawings and small sculptures that initiate her process to larger, complex installations, Amateur Composer shares the unfamiliar yet warm expansion of Hong’s process, inviting viewers to reconsider—and newly define—their relationship with the world around them.

Based in Bristol, UK, Young In Hong has held numerous solo exhibitions across Europe and Asia, including at Art Sonje Center, Korean Cultural Centre UK, Spike Island in Bristol, and Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp. Her performances have been presented at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul Museum of Art, PLATEAU Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, ICA Theatre in London, Arnolfini in Bristol, and the Venice Biennale. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at major institutions such as secession in Vienna, Art Tower Mito in Japan, and the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, as well as in international art events including the Gwangju Biennale and the Milan Triennale. Hong was shortlisted for the Korea Artist Prize at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2019 and received the Kimsechoong Art Prize in 2011 and the Suk-Nam Art Prize in 2003. She is currently a Reader at Bath Spa University, UK.