Contemporary Design

Possesion to Nature

by Jimin Hong
Hands moving salt around on a black background

This project has been started from questions about a territorial dispute over "the island". 

What does it mean to possess? We try to own nature and fight over it through money, borders, boundaries, and maps in the language we have defined. But from nature's perspective, such language does not exist.

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The questions invite people into a space for exploring the meaning and time of our behavior in trying to own nature. In a space filled with salt representing the earth as a landscape, the audience is invited to touch it with their bodies and hands, creating their own spaces and boundaries. On the last day of the exhibition, a performance of pouring water and washing away installation raises questions about the meaning of our actions. 

This question from one island extends to all the territorial conflicts that are happening around the world today, as well as to the question of how we exist with nature.

Salt falling like a waterfall + text: ”What distance is our 1 centimeter to them?”
Hands moving salt around on a black background + text: ”to divide and set boundaries?”
Water splashing on the salt scattered on a black table
The salt is now melted and resembles the ocean from above + text: ”Who divides the boundaries of the earth?”
Melted salt and a text over it: Possesion to Nature - A film by Jimin Hong

Possession to Nature (2023) has been featured at:

  • Dutch Design Week |  Bio Art Laboratories, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 21-29 October 2023
  • Art for All |  Kalasatama, Helsinki, Finland, 25-27 August 2023
  • Flickers Eindhoven: 1st Edition, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 15 September 2023
  • Bio Film Festival, Sospirolo, Italy, 1-3 September 2023
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