The ARKO presentation brought Bread Whispers into the preview programme of No Place Like Home. Bread prepared in the gallery became a point of contact between people gathered for the exhibition. The performance continued the practice of learning, baking and sharing that began in Gwangju.
아르코미술관의 《나의 벗 나의 집》 프리뷰 프로그램에서 빵소리를 선보였다. 광주에서 시작한 배움과 제빵, 나눔의 실천을 전시장으로 이어가며 함께 모인 사람들 사이에 대화의 계기를 만들었다.
Earlier episode: Bread Whispers — Gwangju, 2023.
Later episode: A Study of Wheat, 2026.
Bread Whispers · Horanggasy Creative Studio, Gwangju · 2023
Bread Whispers began with a practical exchange: I offered my artwork in return for baking knowledge. During my residency in Gwangju, learning from the local bakery Bread and Roses led to repeated trials in the kitchen and occasions to share food with other people. Making bread brought my work as an artist into contact with everyday care, hospitality and the skills of another profession.
Ciabatta was central to these baking experiments. Measuring, mixing and handling the wet dough meant learning through repetition, touch and small changes, then cutting into the loaf to see what had happened inside.
The photographic notes also follow making castella: preparing it for the oven, releasing it from the tin and sharing the finished cake.
The work moves between concentrated practice and social encounters. Baking in front of visitors makes the learning visible; a meal with fellow residency artists places it within a wider everyday life.
I designed and made both the certificate and the evaluation form below. The chef at Bread and Roses who taught me bread-making signed both documents, recording the learning exchange and the evaluation of my bread.
Solo exhibition · PS333, Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul
19–31 July 2019
Reach New Heights
SAD School of Artists Development takes the form of a fictional vocational school for artists. At SAD Info Days, the exhibition becomes a place to rehearse the skills, language and professional image expected of an artist. Portrait sessions, practical guides, art jargon and a career map turn the promises of professional development into artworks and participatory situations.
“One application a day keeps loans away.” Printed application forms, shelves and pens turn the routine of applying for funding into a daily training exercise. The work asks how much of an artist’s professional life is spent learning to present a convincing application.
A photographic backdrop and portrait session offer the setting and poses of an apparently successful artist. View the work.
An LED panel displays the language of contemporary art while resting on stacks of art magazines borrowed from the residency archive. Visitors can take a magazine, but risk disturbing the structure supporting the display. View the work.
Vocabulary: Understanding Your Art Professor and Make Life Easier is an artist’s zine in ten cover colours. View the publication.
The programme included a conversation with curator Hong Leeji and portfolio consultations, extending the school’s questions into encounters between artists, curators and visitors.
Related editions: Cheongju Art Studio, 2020 · Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, 2021
Exhibition information: SAD Info Days announcement. Photographs from the artist’s exhibition archive.
Exhibition archive: SAD Info Days, Neolook, July 2019.
SAD School of Artists Development treats the art world as a field of professional training. Its fictional school offers guides, products and exercises that turn the habits of artistic success into a curriculum. In Cheongju, the project extended from the artist’s image and social skills to the promotion, sale and rental of artworks.
The shop brings together SAD products and learning materials, adopting the forms of retail display and professional advice.
2020 · Text vinyl on wall, speakers and interactive device · 1600 × 140 cm
2020 · Screenprint on cotton bag by the artist · 35 × 39 cm
The project also used the format of television home shopping to rehearse the promotion and rental of artworks. SAD makes the promise of professional advancement visible through the language of training, sales and consumer products.
SAD Info Days 2021 presents the products, services and training materials of the fictional School of Artists Development. Survival kits and crash-course notes turn the social habits of the art world into apparently teachable professional skills.
The exhibition brings SAD into the public spaces of vA!, adopting the visual language of an academy and a shop. Its products question how professional image and social connections shape an artist’s career.
Text, speakers and an interactive device turn familiar compliments into a form of social training. The Hong Kong installation uses English and Cantonese, including “You’re so talented!” / “你真係好叻呀!”
Social Smoker’s Box (2021) is a handmade paper box, 87 × 56 × 22 mm, presented with a leaflet and packaging.
Two seminars explored Feng Shui and image design as routes to artistic career success. A video of the events returned to the exhibition as part of the installation.
SAD Kitchen brings cooking and conversation into the exhibition space. The project asks artists who have lived abroad about the difficulties they encounter and the food they turn to for comfort. Preparing and eating these dishes becomes a way to share those experiences.
Bienenstich (2021) is a UHD video with sound and colour, 10 minutes 46 seconds. The video is presented as part of the 2021–2022 SAD Kitchen installation.
Kitchen Notes – Three Attempts in Gangneung began with three encounters: learning directly from two local bakers and a sausage maker. Bread and Nürnberger bratwurst made through these exchanges are presented alongside Hong Kong style egg tarts, which I taught myself to make while living in Korea. Through learning, making and sharing food, the project connects everyday skills with questions of recognition and qualification. I designed and issued the certificates myself, then asked the craftspeople I learned from to sign them. They record actual encounters and skills shared outside a formal qualification system.
Cooking tools, photographs, prints and food tasting performances bring the practical work of making food into the gallery.
Photographs record learning with the local bakers and sausage maker. The self-made certificates name the food, the people and the skills involved, giving these informal exchanges a visible record.
The kits use packaging and 3D-printed food models to bring the time and labour of making food into the form of a product.
Solo Exhibition at Oi!, Hong Kong, 1 Sep 2023 – 7 Jan 2024
In my recent project “SAD Kitchen: Oi! Guide – A Comfort Food Journey,” I utilized 3D printed objects, 3D scanning, animation, wall vinyl, printed matters and installation art to transform the Oi! Warehouse into a multi-sensory “kitchen.” This interactive space invites visitors to explore personal emotions and communal bonds through a site-specific game. Hidden psychological test questions were integrated into the 3D objects and animated features, encouraging self-reflection. Visitors received a personalized “Comfort Food Guide,” pointing them to local dishes in the North Point community. My art aims to use food—and digital media—as vehicles for social and cultural construction, connecting people, places, and stories.
Coordinator. Vanessa Lai
Coordinator in Korea. Hye Kyoung Kwon
Graphic Design & Art Direction. Heesun Seo, Chris Chan @ Studio Hik
Art Technician. Damon Lee, Ting Lap Tak, Tse Chun Sing, Xiao Wen Yan, Yip Kin Bon
Translation. Vanessa Lai, Mary Lee
Special Thanks. Jiho Fong, Studio MARY
Solo exhibition · Gallery Chosun, Seoul
6–29 November 2024
Department of Bread turns a school’s promise of training into a question about who defines achievement. Bread-making becomes a way to examine the demands placed on artists: credentials, assessments and externally approved results can take priority over curiosity, creativity and learning.
The fictional SAD school began in 2019. This department draws on my experience as both artist and educator, using familiar exercises and institutional language to make those pressures tangible.
Flourglass asks participants to practise an unnecessary skill, exposing how arbitrary a test of achievement can be. Shape and Score Clinic directs attention towards precision and prescribed standards, questioning what gets lost when conformity becomes the measure of learning.
In Stretch, ordinary bread-making gestures become exaggerated poses. Their extravagance echoes the spectacle through which institutions present their authority.
These exercises leave room for failure against an external standard. They ask whether participation, persistence and the desire to learn can matter even when they do not produce a certificate or a successful result.
Lambda prints, table, sound
Size variable
2020
A rearrangement from the exhibition with the same title exploring the possibility of spaces within and between images. Fong borrows the title of a poem by Robert Frost and loosely associates it with his life in foreign places. The audience is free to arrange the image sequence for their own reading.
