The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (KCCDC) proudly announces K-Art at Home: Josephine Lee, the second virtual exhibition of the center's 2020 Korean Media Art Series, featuring the tense and thought-provoking performance art videos of Korean multimedia artist Josephine Lee. 

(Photo : KCCDC)

Set to release on KCCDC social media video platforms on October 2, K-Art at Home: Josephine Lee will feature four of the artist's deeply symbolic video works, I Think I Canada I Know I Canada, neoltwiggi/seesaw, Home Video Coney Island, and kirogi (the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home), plus a recorded artist talk by Lee exploring her creative themes, processes, and inspirations. 

Based on her experiences living in the United States, Canada, and Korea, Lee explores the challenges of acculturation and naturalization in her deceptively simple yet emotionally evocative video art. Through repetitive actions, often in conflict with or defiance of the environment, she visualizes the fitful process of assimilation, counterbalancing one's heritage and innate nature with the society and culture of an adopted country of residence. Underlying the symbolism in her videos are conceptual themes of belonging and what constitutes a home sociologically, portrayed through the overlapping artistic media of video, performance, and sculpture. 

At a time when individuals and families are maintaining extended stays at home, this virtual art exhibition is also organized with the hope that audiences can reconsider their homes as not only a functional daily living space but also a precious place of absolute safety and spiritual belonging not to be taken for granted.  

The 2020 Korean Media Art Series, presented by the KCCDC, offers cutting edge art to the public during a time of limited in-person events, highlighting a diversity of works by accomplished Korean multimedia artists. New artists will be featured monthly as part of the series, extending throughout the remainder of the year.  

K-Art at Home: Josephine Lee will release online on October 2 viewable on the KCCDC website through October 26, and the artist talk will release on the KCCDC YouTube channel (@Koreaculturedc) and on IGTV (@Koreaculturedc) on October 2 at 6:00 p.m. For complete exhibition information and content links, see the upcoming listing on the KCCDC website at https://washingtondc.korean-culture.org. 

Artist Statement 

Informed by a lifetime of movement throughout the United States, Canada, and South Korea, Josephine Lee's sculptures, installations, and performances investigate the psychic impact of cultural assimilation and naturalization through migration. Framing her research on the construct of home, Lee examines how notions of place are entangled within the politics of citizenship and national identity. Within this context, Lee implicates her materials, objects, and gestures in narratives of race and nationalism as an antecedent to a deeper examination of the inadequacies of representation, the complications of overlapping histories, and the complexity of unfolding spaces of home and belonging. 

About the Artist

Josephine Lee holds degrees in both the sciences and fine arts. She is the recipient of the BC Arts Council Emerging Artist Award, the University of British Columbia Medal for Fine Arts, and the President's Scholarship for Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, New York. Lee has exhibited in galleries and public spaces in Canada and the United States and performed as part of documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany. Recently, she was awarded the Oscar Kolin Fellowship, the Sparkbox Emerging Artist Residency, and the Vera G. List Sculpture Award. For more information about the artist, visit www.jjosephine.com.