SUNWOO KIM

Taking its title from Heraclitus’ notion of Panta Rhei (‘everything flows’), the exhibition reconsiders this classical idea within the context of contemporary existence. Through the figure of the extinct dodo, the exhibition reflects on loss, transformation and the possibility of recovering what has been forgotten or left behind.

Extinct for more than three centuries, the dodo nevertheless remains one of the most persistent figures in the artist’s visual world. Rather than treating it solely as an emblem of loss, Kim imagines the bird as an ‘eternal voyager’, moving freely between history, memory and imagination. Across the exhibition, it appears as a recurring figure through which questions of freedom, identity and change are explored.

The exhibition builds upon a body of work that emerged following the artist’s research trip to Mauritius in 2015, the dodo’s last known habitat. Encounters with the island’s landscape and history sparked an ongoing reflection on extinction, absence and the ways images continue to persist long after their original subjects have disappeared.

Central to the exhibition is the dodo’s historical loss of flight. Having evolved in an environment with few natural predators, the bird gradually lost the need to fly. Kim draws on this condition as a point of reflection on contemporary life, considering questions of freedom, autonomy and adaptation within an increasingly structured world.

Across the exhibition, the dodo appears within expansive pictorial environments of waves, currents and open seas. Rendered through layered surfaces and luminous colour, these works position the bird not as a symbol of loss alone, but as a recurring protagonist navigating states of transition and change. Through this continual process of reappearance, extinction is reimagined not as an end point, but as a site of transformation.

While informed by Heraclitus’ concept of perpetual flux, the paintings remain rooted in the visual language of storytelling. The dodo reappears across shifting landscapes and temporalities, occupying a space between memory and imagination, disappearance and return.

Panta Rhei – The Eternal Voyager presents the dodo as both witness and traveller. Through this recurring figure, Kim reflects on the ways images endure beyond their origins, continually acquiring new meanings across time.