Background
Yeon Jin Kim’s multidisciplinary practice includes animated films and drawings, work with cut-paper book and re-envisioned Korean Jogakbo.
Born and educated in Seoul, she moved 15 years ago to New York City, where she continues to work. In her work, she celebrates and updates aspects of Korean aesthetics and traditions, while investigating and critiquing the pervasive governmental indoctrination and misinformation she experienced throughout her education. She has been working with and altering her textbooks from high school in Korea to disentangle and reveal the ways that school books were used to promote a positive image of the dictatorship and to hide repression and abuse.
Kim's most recent solo exhibition, Konglish, was presented in 2020 at Place Mak in Seoul. Other recent solo shows have been held at the Society for Domestic Museology in New York, Albright College in Reading, Pa., and at the Cluster Gallery in Brooklyn, all in 2019. Her films have recently been screened at the Philadelphia Asian Film Festival, New Filmmakers New York, Blow-Up Arthouse Film Fest Chicago and at the Glimmerglass Film Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y. Her work was featured in the book 50 Contemporary Women Artists, edited by Heather Zises and John Gosslee, published by Schiffer Publishing in 2018. She has done numerous residencies including Yaddo, Saltonstall, Sculpture Space, I-Park, Fountainhead and Wavehill.
Education
- MFA, Combined Media, Hunter College
- BFA, Sculpture, Seoul National University
