line/선 draws upon the poetics of observing the unobservable and how lines can evoke unspoken experiences.
It questions topics ranging from Korean astronomy and Shamanism to Mormon iconography, all through the lens of Huo’s family’s history.
Through photography and sculpture, Huo connects both personal and political histories in a visual landscape which includes their writing and poetry.
Incorporating a wide range of material including family photographs, inspiration from Korean archeological maps, and stone sculptures – all thoughtfully arranged around the gallery – Huo’s installation creates a new landscape that explores the spiritual and visual connections between seemingly disparate subjects, places, and eras.
At the core of Huo’s exhibition is the artist’s studies of the poetics of a line. Huo is interested in the duality of lines, and how they can serve both as markers of division and as an indication of the connections between things. The gallery at Baxter St is filled with both visual lines – from the abstracted telephone wires stretching across the space to the metal bar railing – and conceptual lines, in the form of the connections between history and the present moment as well as the visual dialogue between various elements of the exhibition.
Huo’s installation encourages the visitor to look at all corners of the gallery space – to look up and down and back and forth across the geographies of space and time while considering how lines are determined and considered. Various elements of the installation are collaborations with the artists’ relatives, from the stones they created together with their mother – which reference the white stones Mormons believe are given to those who enter the celestial kingdom – to the historic photographs taken by their relatives in Korea.
“My grandfather was a photographer during the Korean War. I spend a lot of time going through my family’s photo archives, tracing the stories and lineage of my grandparents,” said Gi (Ginny) Huo. “My grandfather who was a photographer was also the first Mormon to be baptized by Mormon missionaries in Incheon, Korea. Connected to themes of spirituality and religion, I’ve been studying the history of Korean astronomy. I’m interested in celestial observations, archeological mappings, and architecture platforms that observe celestial bodies. My residency at Baxter St earlier this year afforded me the space and time to really delve into these connections and create an immersive landscape which I hope in turn encourages people to build their own topographies and to draw, and perhaps even cross, their own lines.”
