Opening Reception for Jiwon Woo: Self-Salvation 21

‘So, in a single drop of water, the microscope discovers what motions, what tumult, what wars, what pursuits, what stratagems, what a circle-dance of death and life, death-hunting life, and life renewed and invigorated by death … a many-meaning cypher.’ – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The exhibition ‘Self-Salvation 21’ examines and encodes the 21st century’s altering configuration of the human practices of committing sins and seeking salvation. Human-centered industries are transforming ecosystems, rapidly developing new technologies are redefining the definition of nature, and how to be human is becoming data-driven.   

In this kind of society, where we can create and design life, where we look into screens more than into the sky, and where we build inhumane artificial intelligence for humanity, how is the definition of sin changing? In whose perspective do we commit sin? What does it mean to wash one’s sin away and how do we achieve salvation? “Affusion,” “Mental Air,” and “I Want to Be By Myself, but Not By Myself Entirely” together constitute the exhibition to explore such issues.

Jiwon Woo is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, and researcher based in New York. Woo investigates the role of art, design, life science, and technology (in between their borderlines) in this rapidly transforming society across the generations. She researches new biologically designed materials and fabrication methods derived from nature and the human body.