Dahyun Kim

Website: dahyun-kim.com

Email: dahyunkim.art@gmail.com

Dahyun Kim is a Seattle-based artist, whose works span across video, sculpture, and installation. His works has shown in group exhibitions at Base Camp Studio, Slip Gallery, Artists of Color Expo & Symposium, Specialist Gallery, and Sea-Tac International Airport. Kim was twice awarded the iET+I residency funding at Seattle University and received Artist in Residence Fellowship at Base Camp Studio in Seattle, WA.

Statement

As a 1.5 generation immigrant, I grew up in educational settings of two different countries. Moving between cultures, I experienced that values and ethics are not fixed but shift depending on the environment. I am drawn to the gap between individual worldviews, and the real world conflicts that stem from cultural, linguistic, and social differences. Borders don’t only exist between countries; it exists between how each of us are brought up differently.

My practice explores the instability of borders in society through memory and lived experiences. Through found and personal documents, I investigate the spaces where rules and boundaries separate individuals by identity, culture, or status. These are institutions such as schools and public systems that present themselves as orderly and secure. I take images directly from in and outside these institutions and collage them together, forcing an uneasy coexistence between what is held apart. These images physically disturb the polish and functionality of institutional space. Working with assemblage and layered materials, my work becomes a space for both narratives to coexist, revealing that the societal order is constructed and breaks down over time.