Suah Im

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Artist statement

My artistic practice explores the origins of the “self,” as well as the transformative and multilayered nature of identity, drawing on experiences of migration, cultural transition, and adaptation to constantly shifting immediate environments. I engage with the challenges involved in crossing and overcoming boundaries and restrictions. Through references to traditional Korean mythology, intercultural intersections, and Daoist and Buddhist thought, I reflect on the fragility of contemporary existence while searching for alternative forms of being. Recurring figures in my work—such as the ant, the garlic nose, and the bear woman—alongside body parts such as hair and noses, fragile and soft fabrics stiffened with epoxy resin, drawn elements, and the real performing body function in space like a visual alphabet. While each element carries its own meaning as a sign, they connect, shift, and transform within a multimedia practice that interweaves installation, performance, video, kinetic objects, and drawing. Together, they form a distinct system of signs that continually generates new contexts and narratives in space—like new “sentences.” My choice of medium does not follow a fixed form, but changes flexibly in response to the questions raised by each work, such as the symbolism of objects, their individual meanings, and the relationships they establish with one another. Space, in this sense, is not merely a site in which works are placed, but a dynamic stage of the present,...

Artwork