Hye Joung Park

Swirl (mounted) 2009

6th July - 29th July 2009

’You are a centre of the world.

I once made a video of my eyes scanning a new world. I had just arrived in the city Nantes, in France, for a six months stay. It gave me comfort to imagine that my eyes were like anchors and the rest of world was moving around me. Leaving a familiar space to arrive in a new environment, had given me the feeling of being a core of a floating world. This sense gradually disappeared within me as I learned how to navigate the new place and the less I got lost there.  Things that float interest me because they convey this sense of flux. What appears static and weightless is in fact the result of a constant friction of gravity and mass’.

Hye Joung has adapted Swirl from a floor standing piece to fit into the m2 gallery. This gives it a very different presence and identity from how it was seen at her recent post-graduation exhibition at the Slade. In the m2 gallery, Swirl is physically confined and restricted, yet the stainless steel ball carries on revolving on a vortex of water, expanding our horizons and reflecting a new world of urban activity on Kings Grove.