Boo Jihyun
Solid Sea, 2025, Discarded fishing lamps, washer liquid, salt and LED, Dimensions variable. Courtesy the Artist
An old fishing lamp floats above salt spread across the floor. Once used to illuminate the night sea and lure fish, this lamp symbolized fishermen's labor and survival. In <Solid Sea>, the defunct lamp still glimmers faintly, creating a tranquil yet desolate landscape like a fishing boat anchored on the horizon. For Bu Ji-hyun, the sea holds personal memory and sensation. Salt symbolizes traces of life, while light cast upon it creates the illusion of starlight touching water. The solitary landscape of abandoned functional objects prompts reflection on what we have overlooked. This installation offers an experience that slowly permeates through depths of memory and sensation. Having grown up by Jeju's sea, Bu Ji-hyun creates dreamlike installations that reconstruct discarded light and objects based on autobiographical memory and sensation, awakening unfamiliar nostalgia.
