Kyungwoo Chun · Resonancia

"The transcendental days of life have a more intense luminosity than the ordinary ones."
Stefan Zweig

Kyungwoo Chun (Seoul, 1969), globally recognized as the “photographer of the soul,” has since the beginning of his career, promoted the idea that photography and performance are visible manifestations of the invisible. On this occasion, the photographer and conceptual artist Chun presents five projects where the active participation of the audience becomes the central focus of the exhibition, allowing us not only to observe but also to experience and deeply reflect on our environment and our relationship with it.

The presented projects cover universal themes that resonate intimately with each spectator. They explore how becoming aware of our love for nature is key to its preservation (Resonance, 2023); the relativity of time, discovered through the most basic and essential action: breathing (17 Moments, 2012); the ability to forgive ourselves by asking for forgiveness (The Table of Apology, 2018/2025); and how an exercise in empathy putting ourselves in someone else’s place helps us build a more harmonious world and personal relationships (Songs without Lyrics I, 2021/2025).

Finally, the new performance and installation The Void and Voices, 2025 is a piece dedicated to the inhabitants of Mallorca, where memories of happy moments transform into light, guiding us toward a consciousness of the “self” that allows us to better understand our surroundings and appreciate direct human relationships.

Through these participatory works, Chun distances us from the superficiality that characterizes today’s society, transporting us to a state of reflection where empathy and introspection take center stage. These actions, simple yet revealing, exemplify transcendental art in its purest expression. The artist subtly guides us through the space, granting us the necessary time to find meaning in every action we perform.

This participatory experience opens the mind to a liminal space where the thresholds of each sense converge, inviting us to abandon logic and embrace perception. The art of Kyungwoo Chun transcends the need for mere understanding—it invites us to feel, to experience, and to connect on a deeply emotional and intuitive level.

1. RESONANCE, 2023
Archival pigment print, various dimension

Resonance is a series of photographs based on performances in which children participate. Unlike those in cities, the children in the southwestern Indian province of Goa, live close to nature in rainforests and enjoy singing together. The artist asked the children in Goa to select and practice a song they wanted to sing for plants and forests. After each participant practiced singing, the process of time and movement they experienced while singing to the objects of nature in front of them was accumulated in a single photograph.

2. SEVENTEEN MOMENTS, 2012
2-channel video, sound

This work is based on a performance with seventeen contemporary dancers who exercise perfect united breathing in everyday training. The dancers were asked to hold their breath as long as they could and to breathe out.
The underlying question and not defined meaning of ‘moment’ is to the artist, finally depending on the individual length of one breath and the rest of the lifetime of a person.
This simple act consists of many single pieces of life and death as individual and unique moments.

3. THE TABLE OF APOLOGY, 2018/2025
Performance with installation

This work consists of a small participation area and a large table covered with mirrors. Visitors who wish to participate in the artwork are instructed to sit in the booth and use words of apology that have never been done before. The paper with the apology is torn into pieces that are unrecognizable and piled on top of the large mirror table in the exhibition area.

4. SONGS WITHOUT LYRICS I, 2021/2025
Performance and installation

This performance and sound installation work, created with the participation of exhibition visitors, began with the physical conditions of people who have their own sound of mind but communicate in a language other than their voices. The sixteen people with hearing and speaking disabilities who took part in the project created a sound picture (score) for their own songs by imagining the volume and tone of the bell sound with six different shapes and sounds, and these scores, produced with the voices of their hearts, are improvised by visitors in the space installed in the exhibition hall.
This work was created in collaboration with the Munipal Seodaemun Deaf Welfare Center.

5. THE VOID AND VOICES, 2025
Performance and installation

100 people from various backgrounds in Mallorca were invited to participate in the performance. And asked everyone to share happy memories of a meal they wanted to cherish forever. All of the collected recorded voices were converted into light signals, and the installation shows the light with their memory flashing like they were telling other people.
The lights are projected to 100 traditional Mallorca terracotta ceramics for food with the participants’ names on them.
This work is based on the artist’s memory of this island and is dedicated to the people of Mallorca.