O Woomi Chung

1301 STANFORD DR, CORAL GABLES, FL (with Walter K. Lew)

By a small river, two banyan trees stand by each other. On the trees, sheets of 소지 [soji] are hung and tied, with video images projected on them.

Between the two trunks of one banyan tree are twisted soji that connect the trunks and, projected onto them, a video of a scape where it’s wax-raining. The soji of the other tree are hung on a long branch and illumined by a video of burning sticks of incense. The space between the two trees is filled with moving images of fine powder (ash from burning incense) that, despite efforts to scatter it, coalesces into small piles. 

A banyan tree starts growing as an epiphyte (plant growing on another plant), germinating in cracks and crevices of a host tree. Older ones are characterized by their aerial prop roots which grow downward to the ground and give extra support. As the tree cultivates more and more roots that envelop the host tree and form a densely tangled shape, it becomes hard to distinguish the main trunk from the prop roots. Eventually, the increased pressure of the mesh of roots kills the host tree, which rots away leaving only a hollow central core. In some regions, the hollow space serves as shelter for animals, while the prop roots have navigated down to become strong and stable enough to grow with other younger roots, even yielding part of themselves to them.

The life of a banyan tree is inseparable from how it lets new seeds grow on its body that ultimately crush it. Paradoxically, it embraces a habitat that ends up rotting it away, and the many-stranded trunk that, from the outside, looks so complexly tangled is sometimes actually hollow.

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In “1301 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables, FL,” the artists hung visually blank soji on what is naturally able to let go of what used to be its habitat. What is hung is originally blank, but reflects potential images of endeavoring to move on, to grow beyond. The images consist of an uncovered scape being coated with whiteness (projected between a prop root and host tree), the potentiality of growth (between the two trees), and the succession of darkened and brightening phases (on the right wing of the right tree).

PROJECTION ON 소지 [SOJI]

Since prehistoric times, various cultures have painted in caves, engraved on rocks, and performed rituals that involve visualization of an abstract thought or desire. In the folk culture of Korea’s Jeju Island, however, wish-making maintains a visual blankness. People fold a sheet of thin white paper called 소지 [soji], bring it close to their chest, and, after making a silent wish, hang it on a designated tree. The paper remains clean and blank, something that has been interpreted by art historians as purity and emptiness. After certain Buddhist rites, the soji are burnt to purify the space.

In O Woomi Chung’s earlier series With Eyes Closed, she made tiny holes in soji with incense. The work raised questions about what emptying is, since when one endeavors to empty one’s mind, it paradoxically becomes filled with that desire to empty, in contrast to the absolute visual emptiness noted by scholars. 

In this installation, soji is hung on banyan trees with images projected on it. Not designated trees, the banyans are simply ones encountered in a common spot in the artists’ daily walking. And because of the projections, the soji do not remain innocently pure, but are filled with images. At the same time, the video format allows for shifts and occlusions that leave open the potential for blankness.