Selecting judge: Osamu James Nakagawa

Japan and Korea. Looking at the photographs we understand what it is to be engrossed by the question “Where is my home?” while lurching between two cultures. The photographs are an adhesive joining the cultures together. The work unifies two cultures into a single entity from the artist’s imagination, like a single sculpture, constructed from the photographs, expressing her own language, which is neither Japanese nor Korean.

The combination of characters, outfits, and objects she selected reminds us of the eternal cycle of reincarnation. The items also appear to pose a question, and being forced to ponder the nature of that question is beguiling. The work evokes the unresolved, ineffable, and shrouded problems that stand between Japan and Korea.