Eunju Hong (b. 1993), an artist working between Korea and Germany, will present a performance to mark the opening of the Taiwan Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale.
 
The Taiwan Pavilion this year features 《Screen Melancholy: Li Yi-Fan》, a solo exhibition by Li Yi-Fan curated by Raphael Fonseca.
 
For the opening performance, Hong will present a newly adapted version of her 2025 work She seemed devastated, when I was weeping with joy.

This work originates from Hong’s experience as a resident artist at Taipei Artist Village in 2024. Drawing on her research into East Asian puppetry and traditional theater encountered during that time, she presented She seemed devastated, when I was weeping with joy last year, a performance exploring the act of manipulating puppets and the representation of emotion.
 
In the performance, a puppet created from a 3D scan of the artist’s face moves in response to the performer’s gestures, emerging as one of the agents through which the intersection of emotion and memory is explored.
 
Hong’s interest in puppetry has also expanded in relation to the context of Korean traditional theater, leading her to trace the remnants of Korean puppet traditions that disappeared after the Japanese colonial period.

Eunju Hong studied Fine Arts at the Korea National University of Arts and later attended the Academy of Fine Arts Munich as a DAAD master’s scholarship recipient. Based on research into the history of technological development, the artist employs performance, experimental video, and installation to elevate the collisions between technology and emotion, matter and memory into a form of poetic tension, attentively examining the points where personal and social wounds overlap.
 
The artist has held solo exhibitions at venues including Faction, Apartment der Kunst, Arcade Seoul, and the Diplomausstellung, AdBK Munich, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions at institutions such as Ilmin Museum of Art, Galerie der Künstler*innen, Kunstarkaden, the Goethe-Institut, and the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art.

References

• 베니스 비엔날레 대만관 (La Biennale di Venezia Taiwan Pavilion)
• 홍은주, Eunju Hong (Artist Website)