Dong Ji Collective at SWIM Gallery: emerging light from the longest night

Our collective group of 6 had a debut exhibition at SWIM Gallery in San Francisco. We used the word 동지 'Dong Ji' as our theme for the show. 동지 has two meanings; 冬至 is the word for the Winter solstice. It is also the longest night in the year. Traditionally Koreans eat red bean porridge, either sweet or savory depending on the village or family's liking. The second meaning is 同志, which means comrade. Nowadays, it has a more nuanced meaning of when you and another person go through a tough time together, you have become 同志 and have that really close bond, as often comrades do during war times. 

We love to embrace our Korean heritage as many of us in the group had lacked a safe Korean space or have families that didn't practice many Korean traditions. But we also have gone through rough times together and grown over that time.

floating 산수화 'sahn su hwa'

I was inspired by the mountains in Korea. They have such a distinct gradient and contrast of layers and colors, that's what I wanted to highlight in this piece. The synthetic hair braid is a nod to young children back in ancient times, often would style it in a simple low pony braid down their back, and on special occassions accesorize with a hair ribbon, 댕기 'dehng gi.' The gold one is from my childhood and the silver one was made and painted by me. 

Thinking about Korea's mountainous terrain had me wonder about the struggle my ancestors must have had but also how important community was to them. Nearly confined to places you had capacity to travel in and maintaining connections to the human and natural ecosystem. Today, Korea is divided due to many internal reasons but also at the hands of America. While the war is not actively happening, on paper it's in America's hands to end the war and they have not signed that paper. I hope for a day Korea is reunited in some way, ending the demonization and harmful propoganda against the North and borders open

동지 문자도 'dong ji moon jjah doh'

문자도 'moon jjah doh' is a genre of Korean traditional paintings. It's traditionally focused on a Chinese character that has a good meaning such as fortune, wisdom, propserity, longevity. That Chinese character is then adorned with symbols of the same sentiment. For instance turtles and pine trees are symbols of longevity as they both live for very long times. Another example is deers represent peace, harmony, and elegance as they naturally have those characteristics but are also often depicted with this Daoist concept of the 8 immortals.

I chose to use the word 동지 'dong ji' in Korean characters instead because it does encapsulate both meanings/Chinese characters. I then adorned this word with things that I personally like such as the spiders and centipedes, but it also has a pine tree branch, flowers, clouds, and fish in a 굴비 'gool bee' style.