Bottomless Bag, 2020

Commision: SeMA, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art
Collaborator: Minkyung Yoo (curator), Yewon Park (exhibition coordinator), Gom Design & Jeonsan System (exhibition architecture / production), Yehwan Song (programming collaboration: RYB and G), Anu Vahtra (photography collaboration: Self Portrait), Post December (costume design collaboration: Drawing SET), Myungsang Yu (graphic design), Unreal Studio (photography), KINO Production (video production), Gom Design (technical support), Saeroum Innovation (publicity materials), Choong-geun Yoon (SNS PR collaboration), Siniz Kim, Ara Ahn, Taeyoon Choi (special support)

Exhibition title: 물체주머니 (KR) / Bottomless Bag (EN)
Venue: Children’s Gallery atSeMA, Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, KR
Period: 2020.03.26—2020.09.13

Setting no limits on the domain of ‘design,’ Na Kim constructs works exhibiting the aesthetic elements of graphic design through the language of art both in Korea and abroad. In this exhibition, she hopes to revisit the once ubiquitous school supply–filled ‘object bags’ sold in primary school days past. While a clear picture of their contents is difficult to conjure, the memories tied to these bags still remain. Likewise, the exhibition recalls the Bottomless Bag of Inside Out, which held an endless cache of the main character’s fondest mementos, illustrating the exhibition’s core concepts of ‘memory’ and ‘collection.’

What kind of work does a designer do? Can a designer’s ‘work’ be distinguished from her ‘works’? How do the works of a designer differ from those of an artist? In 2015, Na Kim reflected on these many questions and problems to compile the past ten years of her work as a graphic designer in book form. The outcome was SET, in which her works from that period are recompiled into a sort of sample book of distilled images stripped of context; this was then translated once again into a spatial installation work, and the progression of this series gave rise to the eponymous exhibition. Since then, SET has been reconstituted across various spaces and media, acting as a guide for new works and exhibitions. Seemingly unrelated at first, like the contents of an ‘object bag,’ the images of SET are linked with Na Kim’s memories of the past and have become new tools for experimentation.

Looking back on the past five years’ many variations on the SET series, this exhibition acts as the designer’s own ‘object bag.’ We hope that visitors will experience this Bottomless Bag each in his/her own way, just as the artist uniquely interprets the memories that permeate everyday objects to forge relationships between them, and that they might rediscover the meanings of the memories and objects contained within.