About
Hyojung Bea (she/her/hers) is a multi-disciplinary artist primarily working in Jeju, South Korea. She performs and utilizes imagery that evokes labor, trauma and confession, while also symbolizing the inner strength, malleability and the silent dignity of “sea women,” also known as Haenyeo, the female divers in Jeju Island. Bea activates dialogue by reimagining the relationship with her body through sculpture, video and performance. She studied Visual Arts and animation from Seoul National University of Technology, holds a BFA in Studio Arts from CUNY Hunter College, and an MFA in Sculpture from Jeju National University.
Statement
I explore fear, identity, and the anxiety-provoking instability of groundlessness due to my constant moving without a permanent home. I have moved twenty times since I left home at the age of 19. When I was in New York to attend art school, I supported myself as a nail technician, a typical job for undocumented Korean female immigrants. As I painted people’s finger and toe nails every day, I encountered racism, social isolation, and judgement and suffered language barrier, culture shock, and homesickness. The experience left a profound and nightmarish impression on me. In one of my performances, I presented myself as a hedgehog covered in thumb tacks. I reflected my fear of making close emotional and physical relationships with others; if two hedgehogs came in close proximity, both would get hurt by each other’s quills. After I moved back to Jeju Island, I was inspired by Haenyeo’s life and I started to work on the underwater performance videos.
As a fighter and cancer survivor, I longed for freedom as I often felt trapped. I try to understand my longings in three ways: turning towards my discomfort by engaging through performance, taking refuge in familiar objects through sculpture, and learning to live within the flux of my instability through fantasy instilled re- enactments and documentation.