Kimsooja was born 1957 in Taegu, South Korea. She lives and works in New York, Paris, and Seoul.
Kimsooja's work deals with issues of interpersonal relationships and migration through performance, video, photography, and installations. Growing up, Kimsooja and her family were compelled to move from place to place along the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Most of her works are born from stories of displacement.
Alfa Beach is a shoreline in Nigeria that historically was an outpost serving the transatlantic slave trade. In entitling this place, Kimsooja spotlights its history. In addition, bottari, which means "bundle" in Korean, refers to the cultural tradition of bundling and carrying personal possessions in cloth tied or sewn together. By extension, the title suggests, like the framing of the camera lens, a bundle enveloping the work and its construction of meaning.
In Bottari - Alfa Beach (2001), the horizon line shows the sea and sky to be strangely inverted, making manifest our discordant relationship with the sea. The sea can be a neutral or a charged place, a boundary, or a portal, as dangerous as it is beautiful.
Text: Sofia Ringstedt
