Kim Sajik
“ Story ”
2016Grand Prize
ARTIST STATEMENT
Story
“What exactly is a homeland?”
As a Korean national living in Japan, this question was incomprehensible to me. However, it provoked a search for a homeland that began with living ethnic group traditions. Through my search, I discovered ‘somethings’ that should have been impossible for me to understand and, yet, I had always understood.
I collected these ‘somethings’ inside of me, and, as I pieced them together, a cohesive story emerged. These photographs contain things that form partial portraits of the people who appear in that story.
Entries form: Six 1000 x 800 prints (digital output / aluminum mounts / framed) Twelve A3 prints (digital output / matte)
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.
PROFILE
Kim Sajik
Kim Sajik began her career after a shaking up of her physical and mental identity among the Korean diaspora in Japan. She produces works that tell narratives of her own creation using staged photography techniques. As part of her activities as a photographer, she studied under the Korean folk dancer Kim Iru Chi. While learning traditional Korean performing arts, Kim Sajik explores new possibilities arising from the historical, ethnic, and mental trauma that diaspora pass down from generation to generation. Currently, with the cooperation of the Japan‐Sakhalin Association and others, she is researching the Russian island of Sakhalin. Since 2020, she has been working with a large team to complete the video AMA: Swimming with Viruses (https://vimeo.com/529318251).
Kim Sajik plans to publish a photo collection within the year with AKAAKA Art Publishing. Website: http://kimsajik.com
2016Grand Prize