Installation view of
“Homo Narrans” ©Laheen GalleryLaheen Gallery presents a three-person
exhibition, “Homo Narrans” by Noh Sangho, Yi Younguk, and Jeong Youngho, until
January 18.
This exhibition, in collaboration with
three artists, captures a form of testimony that seeks to preserve the self
while uncovering contemporary narratives amidst the "crisis of
storytelling" caused by the information explosion enabled by the collapse
of technological barriers.
The title of the exhibition, “Homo Narrans,”
refers to humanity as a narrative species—storytelling animals that evolved by
weaving narratives for survival. The exhibition diagnoses that the crisis of
storytelling arises as the human attention required for "narrating"
and "listening" becomes increasingly fragmented amidst an
overwhelming deluge of information and data.
Installation view of
“Homo Narrans” ©Laheen GalleryIt explores how fragments of
moments—information and data that fail to form narratives—flit through the
minds of the participating artists, and how they confront these phenomena to
tell stories about life. Moreover, the exhibition invites the audience to
engage in a discursive space obstructed by the unfamiliarity of the
storytelling crisis, allowing them to explore senses that facilitate the
creation of their own narratives and enhance their perception through the
artworks.
Installation view of
“Homo Narrans” ©Laheen GalleryNoh Sangho transposes the sensations evoked
by the intersection of digital and analog realities and the gaps between them
in a straightforward manner, persistently urging the audience to confront the
dulling of awareness in the face of overwhelming stimuli.
Meanwhile, Yi Younguk captures the
provocative and peripheral excitement of his surroundings in repetitive forms
that expand "manipulated shapes," candidly expressing his perspective
and narrative as someone in direct contact with a slice of modern society.
Jeong Youngho integrates works focused on
the modes through which contemporary sensibilities and emotions are expressed
within a storyboard, making tangible the fragile turbulence of perception
systems that arise from the subtle coexistence of the world constructed by
technology and the reality outside the screen.
Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.
