Five Directions: Vessels
September 30, 2022 - January 13, 2023
Five Directions: Vessels is a site-specific installation by artist Julia Chon, curated by Latela Curatorial for the Conrad Washington DC.
Chon creates work across a variety of media spanning sculpture, painting and large scale murals. Her work focuses on honoring her Korean heritage and her notable portraiture aims to redefine modern Asian femininity.
Five Directions: Vessels features five kimchi pots inspired by the principles of Korean feng shui, known as pungsu-jiri (puh-ng su jee-ree). Incorporating both science and philosophy, pungsu-jiri is a practice that employs the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) in an effort to find harmony within the natural world. In practice, pungsu-jiri channels energy to bring balance and luck to a space.
With Vessels, each of the five kimchi pots represents the five directions (north, east, south, west and center), each of which has a corresponding color and symbolism. Additionally, each vessel carries its own potent message for the artist. For Chon, these specific vessels represent grief, sorrow, hope, re-birth and peace. Together this assemblage presents a cyclical embodiment of some of life’s deepest experiences.
These five kimchi pots are part of a larger series, Memories of Home, that Chon aims to exhibit collectively in 2023. This series includes a collection of 52 painted kimchi pots, to represent how many years the artist’s family has lived in the United States since immigrating in 1970.
Installation images by Albert Ting.