Art Sonje Center presents 《Young In Hong: Five Acts & A Monologue》, Young In Hong’s first solo exhibition at a Korean art museum, on view through July 20.

This exhibition brings together two major works: Five Acts (2024/2025)—featuring a circular embroidered tapestry, sculptures resembling animal toys, and five live performances—and Accidental Paradise (2025), a newly commissioned sound installation.

This exhibition unfolds a ritualistic space through the perspectives of women and animals—figures historically marginalized within patriarchal narratives. Here, ritual is not a mere reenactment, but a sensory act of reimagining and reconfiguring suppressed memories and vanished presences. Through tapestry, objects, sound, and performance, the artist activates collective gestures and shared sensations, opening a temporal threshold where history and the present converge.

Five Acts begins with overlooked stories from Korea’s modern and contemporary history of women’s labor. Figures such as Hyun Kyeok, a former gisaeng turned independence activist; Bu Chunhwa, a haenyeo who led anti-Japanese protests in Jeju; and Shin Soonae, a leader in the Cheonggye Garment Workers’ Union, are among those whose struggles Hong brings into focus. Key moments from these histories are embroidered onto a 40-meter-long tapestry, offering a charged site of rupture—a surface for activation, brought to life through five performances held during the course of the exhibition.

On the inner side of the tapestry, abstract and geometric shapes are embroidered on hemp fabric. These forms are inspired by the petroglyphs of Bangudae Terrace in Cheonjeon-ri, Uljoo, where elements of nature—wind, clouds, and the sun—are carved into stone. Inspired by animal behavior enrichment tools observed in a zoo, the sculptures resemble playground equipment like hoops or ring tosses.

During performances, they serve as instruments and props, enabling performers to respond to embroidered scenes and compose new gestures in the sensory present. A drummer accompanies them, improvising rhythms guided by animal-shaped scores stitched along the lower edge of the tapestry.
In this exhibition, tapestry, sound, and performance are fluidly interwoven. Resisting linear narratives and vertical structures of authority, Hong offers an egalitarian field in which history is sensed through embodied gestures, rhythmic activations, and sonic transformations. Here, stories of resistance do not disappear—they wait, pulsing beneath the surface, until bodies, rhythms, and voices bring them back to life.

 Performance
*The performance is open to same-day exhibition ticket holders and does not require prior reservation.

5/8 (Thu) 6pm
5/24 (Sat) 2pm
6/14 (Sat) 2pm
6/28 (Sat) 2pm
7/12 (Sat) 2pm

“Young In Hong: Five Acts & A Monologue”
2025.05.09 - 2025.07.20
Tue-Sun 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Art Sonje Center
87 Yulgok-ro 3-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea