• One of the best-known works by the Korean artist, Kimsooja (b. Taegu, 1957, lives and works in New York, Seoul and Paris) is the video and performance Cities on the Move: 2727 kilometres Bottari Truck (1997), created for the much-discussed exhibition, Cities on the Move. [1] It is a quiet version of a road movie. We see a blue truck, loaded with colourful bundles of textiles, called bottari in Korean, piled up on one another like a mountain. Kimsooja is sitting at the top of the pile and makes the journey together with the truck, 2727 kilometres along all the places she had lived as a child. The frame of the image is fixed: from the back, we see Kimsooja as an anonymous female figure in the lotus position, while cities and Korean mountain landscapes move past. For Cities on the Move (1997), curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru, artists, architects and designers investigated or reflected on urban transformations in Asia as a result of globalization and modernization. Because of the associations that the work evokes with the concepts of migration and nomadic lifestyles, Kimsooja's 2727 kilometres Bottari Truck became the ultimate metaphor for this theme. Her participation in the exhibition marked her definitive breakthrough into the international exhibition circuit. [2] Commenting on the great interest being shown in her work, she has said, 'Today, it seems that we are witnessing a "cultural war" with many issues arising in a global context, bringing together different races and beliefs, with an increasing discrepancy between rich and poor, economically powerful and less powerful countries. (…) The issues that that I address in Bottari Truck and A Needle Woman are very much related to current topics, such as migration, refugees, war, cultural conflict and different identities. I think people are interested in considering these topics through the reality of the works. This may be one reason for their success.' [3]

• In this context, Kimsooja also expressed her criticism of the international biennial circuit, which she finds 'more and more focused on the power structure within the art world'. [4] Although Kimsooja's work, as she herself indicates, indisputably concerns the field of tension between the rise of a global culture and regional values and such themes as migration and cultural conflict, at the same time, it goes much further. Equally fascinating in her work is her utterly personal approach to performance and the representation of nature, both of which are strongly influenced by an Eastern way of looking at things.

• A Needle Woman (1999-2001) is a multichannel video installation in which Kimsooja forms the unmoving, meditative central point. Her face turned away from the viewer, she stands in the middle of the masses of people in different urban metropolises: Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, London, Delhi, New York, Cairo and Lagos. The title, A Needle Woman, describes how Kimsooja sees herself: as a needle that 'pricks through' the social, societal context of the different geographic locations. It is a handsome example of the way in which her work embraces a marriage between the characteristically Western model of participation in relational aesthetics and Eastern, meditative techniques. [5] While her work shares roots with the relational aesthetics of such artists as Maurizio Cattelan, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe and Rirkrit Tiravanija, it begins with a concept of space and time that contradicts that approach. Where, in the work of an artist such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, the encounter with the public is the central focus, as a temporary social activity, Kimsooja's performances separate themselves from this temporary character and have the objective of creating a moment of concentration and focus that is binding, revealing and in essence holistic. 'I am interested in approaching the reality that embraces everything, because it is the only way to get to the point without manipulation.' [6]

• In the Korean art scene in which Kimsooja first defined her position as an artist in the early 1980s, there was an ongoing debate about cultural identity, a critical review of formalism and the meaning of social engagement, similar to that of the art world in the West. The need to mix art with life went hand-in-hand with attention to local, cultural traditions and the reflection on the history of one's home country. Kimsooja belongs to a new generation of artists who are interested in the body, memory, intimacy, the everyday and the marginal. She found her identity as an artist at the point when she decided to abandon paints and canvas, the media canonized by the history of Western art that she had mastered as a student at the Hong-Ik University in Seoul. Like Tiravanija, Kimsooja chose to use everyday materials and activities as her starting point. The ybulbo, a traditional piece of cloth in cotton or silk, printed with colourful motifs and which has since time immemorial had a range of everyday functions in Korea - people sleep and children are born on them and they serve to wrap up items for safekeeping or for travel - became her new 'canvas', needle and thread her 'brushes'.

• In the 1980s, Kimsooja stitched these traditional cloths together into covers and objects, bundled them into bottari and used them in countless installations and performances. From here, she gradually developed a working method in which she saw her own body as the needle or thread and the world as 'the canvas'. Her performances were recorded with video cameras as a condensed moment of energy and interaction with the world, whereby the screen functions as a metaphor of the screen that exists between Kimsooja and the rest of the world.

• Kimsooja came from a Catholic family, but daily life in Korea is also permeated with both Confucianism and a mix of Buddhism and shamanism. After Buddhism, Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, is the primary religion in South Korea. Korean religion is complex and eclectic in nature: it is founded in old Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist traditions but it also embraces many Christian elements. The fact that her work reveals so much in common with the principles of Zen Buddhism was something she only realized rather late in her career. Still, she does not want to refer to her work as either Eastern or Western. It is a way of thinking that confuses Western art critics. In an interview, Nicolas Bourriaud asked her, 'Do you think that oriental thought has a real impact on the contemporary art world, or is it only a postmodern kind of exoticism, a decor for western aesthetic investigations?' Kimsooja's reply was that the Eastern way of thinking inhabits every context of contemporary art history, not just as theory, but as an attitude melded into one's personality and existence, and is inseparable from Western thinking. [7]

• Kimsooja's interventions in public space are not about an open, noncommittal social relationship. Her meditative 'disappearances' clearly make a moral appeal to the public. For her performances, A Homeless Woman - Delhi (2000) and A Homeless Woman - Cairo (2001), she set herself down on the ground in the middle of the busy, urban public spaces of Delhi and Cairo, respectively. For a new edition of the video installation of A Needle Woman (2005), she visited six cities in precarious political and social circumstances: Patan (Nepal), Jerusalem (Israel), Sana'a (Yemen), Havana (Cuba), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and N'Djamena (Chad). Her unmoving, meditative stillness creates an emptiness and a focus of concentration that makes everything happening around her in all these different metropolises all the more visible. 'I have an ambition as an artist: it is to consume myself to the limit where I will be extinguished. From that moment, I won't need to be an artist anymore, but just a self-sufficient being, or a nothingness that is free from desire.' [8] Kimsooja feels that the highest ideal that can be achieved by an artist is to be as minimal, as unprepossessing a presence as possible.

• In her recent multichannel video installation, A Mirror Woman: The Sun & The Moon (2008), included in the Windflower exhibition, this principle reaches an apex. In this work, the images for which were taken along the beach in Goa, India, we see an exceptional eclipse in which the sun and the moon melt together. To the left and right of this are two additional video screens showing the waves washing up on the beach and the rhythm of the tides. Kimsooja herself is no longer in the image. We can only perceive her indirectly as the person who observes the natural phenomena from behind the camera, and who by way of a technical procedure, records the sun rise and set over the moon. When I asked her if she felt that she had taken an important step towards completely disappearing out of her own work, she replied, 'I personified the mirror symbolically as my body, as an inserted action/performance in between the sun and the moon, so that my presence becomes invisible, and my body/life vanishes while it transforms as a metaphor of an object. (…) When I disappear, I represent the act of nature more closely. Thus only my gaze becomes active.' [9]

• Late last year, and from a comparable perspective, Kimsooja created the large-scale video installation, Earth-Water-Fire-Air (2009-2010), a temporary project on location on the grounds of one of the largest nuclear reactors in the province of Yonggwang, South Korea. This scale and setting of this version of the video installation was the result of a collaboration between the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea, the korean Ministry of Culture and the company Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, including Hanijin Shipping. [10] Kimsooja placed a video installation, comprised of eight large screens, each about 150 metres away from the others, on a 1200-metre long pier in the sea. Video recordings that she had taken on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and of volcanoes in Guatemala formed the cornerstone for an abstract, visual interpretation of nirvana, in which the four elements – earth, water, fire and air – flow into one another. The fact that the character of each element is inseparably bound to the other elements is also expressed in the titles of the six videos: Fire of Earth, Water of Earth, Earth of Water, Air of Fire, Air of Earth, Air of Water, Fire of Water, Water of Fire. For a period of two weeks, the video works could be seen after sunset, in the evenings and at night, with visitors having to submit to the strict security regulations of the industrial power complex. With this work, Kimsooja wanted to draw attention to the issue of nuclear energy as a form of energy that, like the concepts of Yin and Yang [two opposite and complementary values in Chinese philosophy-Taoism with which the universe presents itself –ed.], produces positive as well as destructive energy. The work is intended as a contemplation on the use of natural sources of energy and the relationship between mankind, his origins and the earth. In light of the recent catastrophic events at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami, this work has unexpectedly become all the more poignant and topical.

• In an earlier work, the performance and video, A Needle Woman - Kitakyushu (1999), Kimsooja lies on a rock formation in the Japanese city of Kitakyushu. It is an extremely minimalist image: heaven and earth and a woman lying on top of a rock formation, forming the line that divides the two. Kitakyushu is an industrial city in western Japan, with a million inhabitants. In the 1960s, the city had a bad reputation because of air pollution, but today, the recycling and water purification techniques that are employed there are now being adopted as a model for other major Japanese cities. It is a strange anachronism that in the video, Kitakyushu is only represented in an image of the nature present in the tattered margins of the city. The earth and the air, however, appear as universal eminences, as Yin and Yang, the dynamic powers from the natural world, as we know them from classic Chinese science and philosophy. As Kimsooja explains, 'When I was invited to make a new commissioned work at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Kitakyushu, Japan, I thought I would do a performance piece – one in the city of Tokyo, and the other one in nature. Then I would juxtapose them together. This was to examine how my body reacts and defines, in relationship to the given environmental conditions that are the human being and nature. As a result, one was standing still in the middle of a crowd, while the other was lying down on a rock, facing nature. Verticality and horizontality were a metaphor for a dynamic balance between urban and natural forces.' [11]

• In the West, people are sometimes inclined to identify Yin and Yang in terms of opposite ideas of good and bad, but the essence of Taoist philosophy is not to think in terms of the opposites of moral judgments, but from the idea of a balance. It is primarily this spiritual principle that is deeply anchored in Kimsooja's work and is a determining factor for her perspective of nature and landscape – being present, being absent, as actively as possible, so that a black hole is created that attracts all meaning towards itself. As an artist, one becomes a mirror of the complexity of the universe, facing the viewer. In this, Kimsooja is a master.

• 현재 뉴욕, 서울 그리고 파리를 오가며 거주 및 활동 중인 김수자(1957-)는 그녀의 가장 잘 알려진 작업 중 하나인 퍼포먼스 비디오 <떠도는 도시들: 보따리 트럭 2727 킬로미터 (Cities on the Move: 2727 kilometres Bottari Truck)>(1997)를 통해 동시대의 다양한 전시의 담론을 생성해왔다. 이 작품은 무성의 로드 무비이기도 하며, 우리는 ‘보따리’라고 불리는 형형색색의 직물 꾸러미들이 마치 또 다른 산더미와 같이 쌓여 있는 푸른색 트럭을 볼 수 있다. 작가는 이 보따리 꾸러미 꼭대기에 앉아 유년시절부터 살았던 전국의 마을과 도시들을 따라 트럭과 함께 11일간 2727km여정을 떠난다. 2727 km의 퍼포먼스 여정 중에 제작된 비디오는 그녀가 각 한국의 풍경들을 스쳐 지나는 동안, 그 비디오 프레임은 고정되어 관객은 작가의 뒷모습을 보면서 마치 가부좌를 튼 한 익명의 여성으로 인지하게 된다. 《움직이는 도시들 (Cities on the Move)》(1997)[1]은 한스 울리히 오브리스트와 후 한루가 기획했고, 다수의 작가들과 건축가들 그리고 디자이너들이 세계화와 근대화의 결과물로써 아시아 지역에서 발생하는 도시의 변화에 주목하며 이를 작업에 반영했다. 그 연대로 인해 김수자의 <떠도는 도시들: 보따리 트럭 2727 킬로미터>는 유목적인 삶과 이주의 개념을 환기시켜주면서 이 전시 주제의 궁극적인 메타포가 되었고, 그녀의 <떠도는 도시들: 보따리 트럭 2727 킬로미터>은 국제적인 미술계에서의 그녀의 확고한 입성을 확인시켜주는 계기가 되었다.[2] 작가는 자신의 작품에 대한 많은 언급에 대해 다음과 같이 말했다. “오늘날 우리는 국제적인 맥락에서 발생하는 다양한 사건들과 더불어 ‘문화적 전쟁’을 목도하고, 부유한 자와 빈곤한 자 혹은 경제강국과 약소국 사이의 급증하는 차이에 따른 서로 다른 인종과 종교의 차이를 아우름으로써 (중략) 이 논제들은 <보따리 트럭 (Bottari Truck)>과 <바늘여인 (A Needle Woman)>을 통해 이주, 피난, 전쟁, 문화적 충돌, 서로 다른 정체성 등 현 시대의 주요한 주제를 언급하였다. 나는 관객들이 작품의 현실성을 통해 이러한 주제들에 대해 고민하고 관심을 갖고 보게 된다고 본다. 아마도 이 점이 그 작업들을 성공적으로 이끌었던 이유 중 하나인 것 같다. [3]

• 이러한 맥락에서 작가는 국제적인 비엔날레들의 다발적 움직임에 대해 비판적인 견해를 나타내는데, 이는 그녀가 국제적인 비엔날레가 미술계 안에서 점점 더 강력해지며 파워를 행사하는[4] 구조에 대한 인지라 할 수 있다. 그녀가 스스로 시사하는 바에 따라 김수자의 작품은 변론의 여지 없이 글로벌한 문화의 성장과 동시에 지역적 가치들, 예를 들어 이주와 문화적 충돌에 따른 주제들에 대해 고민하고 있고 이는 더 심화되고 있다고 본다. 마찬가지로 특히 흥미로운 점은 사물에 대한 동양적인 관점에 따른 강력한 영감이 그녀의 작품에 있어 퍼포먼스와 자연의 표현 모두에 대한 그녀의 진지하고도 독특한 개인적인 접근 방식이라는 점이다.

• <바늘여인 (A Needle Woman)>(1999-2001)은 멀티채널 비디오 설치로써 작가의 부동의 명상적 관점을 제시한다. 작가는 관객으로부터 등을 돌린 채 8개의 다른 대도시들 즉, 도쿄, 상하이, 멕시코 시티, 런던, 델리, 뉴욕, 카이로, 라고스의 군중 한가운데 서 있다. <바늘여인>은 작가가 스스로를 바늘로써 바라보며 서로 다른 지정학적 장소성에 따른 사회적 맥락들을 ‘관통’ 하고 있다. 이러한 작업은 ‘관계미학’의 관점에서 서양의 특징적인 참여 모델과 동양적인 사색의 기술을 아우르는 매우 적절한 예시 방법이다.[5] 그녀의 작업들이 근본적으로 관계미학에 대해 다음과 같은 작가군, 마우리치오 카텔란, 도미니크 곤잘레스-포스터, 피에르 위그, 리크리트 티라바니야 들과 공유하는 태도가 있는 반면, 그녀의 관계미학은 시공간의 개념과 함께 시작되었다고 볼 수 있다. 예를 들어 리크리트 티라바니야의 작업에서는 집단적이고 단기적인 사회 활동과 같은 공공성이 주요 관심사인데, 김수자의 퍼포먼스들은 그러한 순간적인 사회적 연대로부터 자신을 분리하여 - 즉, 서로 관계짓고, 드러내면서 어느 한 집중의 순간에 형성되는 객관성을 획득하게 된다. 즉, 본질적으로 통합적이라고 할 수 있다. “나는 모든 것을 수용하는 현실에의 접근방식에 관심을 가진다. 왜냐하면 이것이야말로 왜곡됨이 없이 핵심에 이르는 유일한 방법이기 때문이다."[6]

• 김수자가 처음으로 본인의 위치를 작가로 정의했던 1980년대 초반 한국의 미술계는 서구 미술계에서 그러했듯이 문화적 정체성, 형식주의에 대한 비판, 사회적 관계의 의미에 대한 계속적인 논의가 진행되었다. 예술과 삶을 연계하고자 하는 필요성은 지역성에 관심을 갖게 하였고, 나아가 문화적 전통과 한국 역사성의 반영으로 파급되었다. 그녀는 신체, 기억, 친밀함, 일상적이고 주변적인 것들에 관심을 갖는 새로운 세대의 예술가에 속한다. 당시 그녀가 페인트와 캔버스를 폐기하기로 결심했던 순간 작가로서의 정체성을 발견하였다. 이러한 표현 수단은 서양미술사에서 이미 공표된 것이었으며 또한 그녀가 홍익대학교에서 학생으로 있을 때 이미 완성했던 부분이기도 하다. 티라바니야와 같이 김수자 또한 그 출발점으로 일상생활의 재료와 행위들을 사용하였다. 면이나 비단으로 만들어진 전통적인 천 조각인 <이불보 (ybulbo)>는 형형색색의 무늬로 날염되어 예전부터 한국에서의 본래적인 기능들 즉, 일상 속에서 사람들이 자고, 그 위에서 아이들이 태어나고, 보관용으로 혹은 여행을 목적으로 물품들을 싸매는 역할을 하고 있다. <이불보>는 작가의 새로운 ‘캔버스’가 되었고, 바늘과 실은 궁극적으로 작가의 ‘붓’이 되었다.

• 1980년대 김수자는 이러한 전통적인 천을 꿰매거나 덮개나 오브제들을 만들어 보따리에 넣고, 수 많은 설치작품과 퍼포먼스에 사용하였다. 여기서부터 작가는 신체를 바늘, 실, 혹은 세계를 ‘캔버스’로서 인식하는 작업 방식을 점차적으로 발전시키게 된다. 작가의 퍼포먼스는 에너지를 압축시킨 순간이자 세계와의 상호작용으로서 기록되었고, 여기서 비디오 스크린은 김수자와 나머지 세계 사이에 존재하는 은유의 거울로서 작용한다. 김수자는 천주교 가정에서 자랐지만, 한국에서의 일상 생활은 개신교, 유교, 불교와 샤머니즘이 섞인 혼합 종교 모두에 밀접하게 영향을 받았다. 불교 이후, 개신교, 천주교를 포함한 기독교는 한국의 주요한 종교들이 되었다. 과거 유교, 불교, 도교의 전통에서 보여지듯이 한국의 종교는 독특하지만 현실적으로 절충이 가능하였고, 또한 수많은 기독교적 요소 역시 수용하였다. 김수자의 작업이 도교 혹은 선불교의 원리와도 깊은 연관성이 있는 것을 작가는 최근 뒤늦게 인식하게 된다. 그러나 작가는 여전히 그녀의 작업을 동양적 혹은 서양적이라고 규정짓기를 원하지 않았고, 이러한 사고 방식이 서양의 미술 비평가들을 혼란스럽게 하기도 하였다. 니콜라 부리요와의 인터뷰에서 김수자는 다음과 같은 질문을 받는다. “당신은 동양 사상이 현대미술 세계에 정말 영향을 미쳤다고 생각합니까? 아니면 단지 포스트모던한 이국적인 것 혹은 서양의 심미적 탐구를 위한 장식으로 기능한다고 여깁니까?”에 대해 작가는 동양의 사고 방식은 단순히 이론이 아닌 인격과 존재에 녹아 든 하나의 삶의 태도로서, 현대 미술사의 모든 맥락에서 발견할 수 있으며 서양식 사고와는 불가분의 관계라고 답한다 [7]

• 공공장소에 개입하는 김수자의 작업은 공개적이고 애매한 사회적 관계에 대한 것이 아니다. 작가가 보여주는 명상적 ‘사라짐’은 도덕적 호소력을 대중으로부터 만들어낸다. 김수자의 퍼포먼스 <집 없는 여인 – 델리 (A Homeless Woman - Delhi)>(2000)과 <집 없는 여인 – 카이로 (A Homeless Woman - Cairo)>(2001)에서 각각 델리와 카이로의 복잡한 공공 장소 한가운데 누워있으며, 또한 비디오 설치 작품 <바늘여인>(2005)을 위해 정치사회적으로 불안정한 6개의 도시 - 파탄(네팔), 예루살렘(이스라엘), 사나(예멘), 하바나(쿠바), 리오데자네이로(브라질), 엔자메나(차드) - 들을 방문하기도 한다. 미동 없이 몰입해 있는 작가의 침묵은 공허함과 정신의 집중을 끌어내고, 서로 다른 대도시들 안에서 작가 주위에 일어나는 모든 것들을 더 눈에 띄게 만든다. “나에게 작가로서의 야망이 있다면, 그것은 나의 모든 에너지를 소진하여 내가 소멸하는 그 순간에 다다르고자 한다는 것 이다. 그 순간부터 나는 더 이상 작가일 필요가 없다. 단지 자유자족한 존재이거나 혹은 욕망에서 벗어난 무(無)의 상태인 것이다.”[8] 김수자는 작가로서 성취할 수 있는 가장 높은 이상을 최대한 단순하고 비소유적인 존재가 될 때 느낀다.

• 전시에서 선보였던 비디오 설치 최근작인 <거울 여인: 해와 달 (A Mirror Woman: The Sun & The Moon)>(2008)에서 김수자의 이러한 원칙은 정점에 달한다. 작품에서 인도 고아의 해변을 따라 석양이 지는 동시에 달이 함께 뜨는 극히 이례적인 식(蝕)을 볼 수 있으며, 작품의 나머지 3개의 스크린에는 파도와 조수의 만유인력을 볼 수 있다. 작가는 이 이미지 속에 없다. 관객은 오로지 카메라 뒤에서 자연적 현상을 지켜보는 자 혹은 태양이 지고 달이 떠오름을 지배하는 이 자연광경을 기록하는 자로서만 그녀를 간접적으로 인식하게 된다. 작품에서 작가의 존재가 완전히 사라지는 중요한 단계를 거치고 있는지에 대하여 물어보자 그녀는 다음과 같이 대답하였다. “나는 거울을 마치 나의 몸처럼 상징적으로 의인화시켰다. 마치 해와 달 사이에서 벌어지는 궤도의 움직임을 실행하는 퍼포먼스로서 그, 나는 보이지 않고, 나의 신체는 은유적인 오브제인 보이지 않는 거울로써 변형되어 사라진다 (중략) 내가 사라지면, 자연의 움직임을 더욱 친밀하게 보여줄 수 있다. 그리고 나서는 오직 나의 시선의 현존만이 그곳에 남게 된다. [9]

• 같은 맥락으로 작년 말 김수자는 원자력 발전소가 있는 한국 영광 지역에 대규모 비디오 설치 작품 <지수화풍 (Earth – Water –Fire – Air)>(2009-2010)을 설치하는 단기 프로젝트를 진행하였다. 이 대형 비디오 작품은 국립현대미술관, 한국 문화관광부와 한국 수력원자력, 한진 해운 등 국내 기업들의 협력으로 이루어졌다.[10] 작가는 150m 간격을 둔 8개의 대형 비디오 스크린을 부둣가 1200m를 따라 설치하였다. 영상은 카나리아 제도의 란자로테 섬의 다양한 자연의 요소들과 과테말라의 화산활동을 찍은 것으로서, 열반의 네 가지 요소 - 흙, 물, 불, 바람 - 가 서로서로 흐르면서, 그 추상적, 시각적 해석을 위한 초석으로 구성되었다. 흙, 물, 불, 바람이라는 각 요소는 그 성질이 불가분하게 다른 것들과 얽혀있는데, 이것은 6개의 영상 작품 제목에도 표현된다: <흙의 불 (Fire of Earth)>, <흙의 물 (Water of Earth)>, <물의 흙 (Earth of Water)>, <불의 공기 (Air of Fire)>, <흙의 공기 (Air of Earth)>, <물의 공기 (Air of Water)>, <물의 불 (Fire of Water)>, <불의 물 (Water of Fire)>. 2주간의 전시 기간 동안 방문객들은 해당 전력 단지의 안전 규정을 준수하는 한도 내에서 해가 진 후 저녁과 밤에 작품을 관람할 수 있었다. 김수자는 원자력 에너지를 음(陰)과 양(陽) - 우주가 음양 그 자체로 존재한다고 믿는 중국 도교에서 말하는 두 종류의 반대되며 상호보완적인 가치 - 의 개념처럼 이해하고, 작품을 통해 생산적이면서도 파괴적인 에너지를 만들어내는 원자력 에너지에 대한 관심을 이끌어내고자 하였다. 이 작품은 자연적인 에너지 원천의 사용과 인류, 또, 인류의 기원과 자연과의 관계에 대한 명상을 목적으로 기획되었다. 최근 지진과 쓰나미로 인해 일어났던 일본 후쿠시마 원자력 발전소 사건으로 보았을 때, 이 작품은 더 안타깝고 시사적인 의미를 지닌다.

-초기 퍼포먼스 비디오 작품인 <바늘여인 – 기타큐슈 (A Needle Woman - Kitakyushu)>(1999)에서 김수자는 일본 기타큐슈의 암반층에 누워있다. 이것은 - 하늘, 땅 그리고 돌 위에 누워있는 여인이 둘로 나뉘는 경계선을 만들어내는 - 지극히 단순한 이미지이다. 일본 서부 산업도시인 기타큐슈 지역에는 백 만 명의 주민이 살고 있다. 기타큐슈는 1960년대 공기 오염으로 평판이 좋지 않았으나 오늘날에는 재활용과 수질 정화기술을 적용하여 오염치수를 내림으로서 다른 대도시들의 귀감이 되었다. 이 작품에서 키타큐슈가 도시의 낡은 주변부에 위치한 자연의 이미지로만 비춰지는 것은 시대착오적 생각이다. 그러나 영상에서 땅과 공기는 고대의 중국 과학과 철학에서 알 수 있듯이 자연의 역동적인 힘인 음(陰)과 양(陽)처럼 보편적인 것으로 보여진다. 이에 대해 김수자는 다음과 같이 설명한다. “새로운 커미션 작품을 위해 일본 기타큐슈 현대미술관에 초대 받았을 당시, 나는 막연히 퍼포먼스 작업을 하겠다고 생각했다. 하나는 도쿄에서 또 다른 하나는 자연 속에서 말이다. 이후, 나는 이 둘을 함께 병치했고, 인간과 자연에게 주어진 환경적 조건과 관계 속에서 내 몸이 어떻게 반응하고 정의되는지를 탐구하려는 것이었다. 그 결과 하나의 퍼포먼스는 군중 사이에서 부동의 자세로 서게 되었고, 다른 하나는 자연을 바라보며 돌 위에 누워있게 된 것이다. 결국 수직과 수평은 도시와 자연의 힘 사이에서의 역동적인 균형의 은유가 되었다.” [11]

• 서양에서는 종종 음(陰)과 양(陽)을 좋고 나쁜 정 반대의 개념으로 여기는 경향이 있지만, 도교 철학의 본질은 도덕적 정의의 양 극단에 대한 것이 아니라 균형에서 시작한다. 이것은 김수자의 작품에 깊이 내재되어 있는 정신적인 원칙이자, 자연 - 존재하거나, 부재하거나, 혹은 활동적인 - 을 바라보는 작가의 관점을 이해하기 위한 결정적인 요소이기도 하다. 그리하여 일종의 검은 심연은 모든 의미를 끌어들일 수 있게 만들어진다. 김수자는 한 작가로서 우주의 복잡함을 반영하는 거울이 되어 관객을 대면한다. 이러한 점에서 그녀는 거장이다.

• Andrew Maerkle
  We were just discussing your understanding of the dynamic between globalism and locality, particularly with regard to your performance videos for A Needle Woman (1999-2001/2005). Your work is often discussed in terms of displacement. Is there any place to which your works return or come home?

• Kimsooja
  I tend to work on the move, mostly while I'm traveling. For the works themselves there is no sense of "home." The context changes each time they travel. When the same performance piece is shown in India it is different from when it is shown in Peru or Kenya. It elicits different connotations from the viewers, and in response to each specific time and geography.

• I don't intend to make displacement a theme in my work but the constant nature of moving from one place to another in my life automatically creates that phenomenon. Also, the notion of displacement is already there in bottari making. As a physical container of bodies, memory, history and society, the bottari holds together many different notions of time, space, culture, society and gender, but at the same time it is also made with a single piece of square-shaped fabric, so formalistically it's a transformed painting that becomes a three-dimensional sculpture the moment you tie it up with a knot.

• It was from this formalistic aspect that I first began working with bottari, and then in 1993 when I returned to Korea from my residency at PS 1 in New York, my interest evolved towards more personal, social and cultural significances. I was able to see my own culture and society differently after my stay in New York, and this created a different reality that could offset the formalistic aspect of the work. The notion of displacement in the bottari also relates to time. The bottari is a container of different tenses - the past, present and future - which are collapsed together all at once the moment I wrap it up.

• In a way, the presence represented by the bottari can also be represented by the artist's body, which is similarly a container of all those problems. Maybe I'm unfolding them through my relationship to the nature and humanity of each city. For example, in the first version of A Needle Woman (1999-2001), I visited all the major world metropolises, but in the second version (2005) I went mainly to cities in war zones or to those that were sites of political and religious conflict. I visited Havana and Rio de Janeiro in order to witness issues of post-colonialism, exploitation and violence. I went to Patan, in the Kathmandu Valley, while a civil war was taking place, and it was a very dangerous moment. I wanted also to go to Afghanistan and Iraq, although ultimately it was too risky and I didn't want to gamble my life to that extent. But these were some of the symbolic locations that drew my attention at that time.

• Andrew Maerkle
  Regarding the similarities between the bottari and the body, one thing that interests me about your works is posture. It's incredibly difficult to stand or sit still for any amount of time. To do so, your body has to assume almost architectural qualities. Is posture something that you've thought about over the years - not just the body itself, but also the shape of the body and the mechanics of how you hold it up or lay it down?

• Kimsooja
  In fact, even to stand still can be a production. When I did the first A Needle Woman performance in Shibuya I had to learn right at that moment how to stand still and how to breathe and be grounded. I had never practiced any meditation or yoga, but because of this urge that drove me to do the performance, I was able to start learning meditation practice on my own. In order not to move my shoulder, I had to learn how to breathe from my stomach, as I could only move horizontally. In order to be grounded, I had to stand solidly and rigidly, but also had to find a way to relax in order to maintain my circulation over the course of the performance. The only thing I could do was to order myself to relax my head, relax my left shoulder, relax my feet, relax my neck - and it worked. I learned to circulate my own body by practicing this performance. Looking at it, I see the body, as you say, as an architectural element. I see it very objectively rather than identifying with it.
  The idea of a standing performance also developed from my awareness of and reaction against the aggressive and violent exposure of the self that often happens in performance practices in history. I was very aware of that, and I wanted to create a performance that is nonviolent that could show more by doing "nothing."

• Andrew Maerkle
  In Chinese philosophy there is the concept of "wu wei" - acting without acting, a kind of non-expression or non-action. I think this concept is fascinating to explore further in an art context.

• Kimsooja
  In my performances, non-expression often creates a measure or barometer for understanding the other, similarity and difference. In A Needle Woman, viewers see the same performance of non-action taking place in all these different cities, and then become aware of the clear distinctions between the behavior of the people in the different cities and the different landscapes. After a certain point the viewers tend to forget my image and begin to see what I am seeing. My body begins to function as a void that is replaced by the bodies of the viewers, allowing them to experience each performance in each location. I think it would be very different if I excluded myself and showed only the cityscapes with people. There would be no entry point for viewers.

• Andrew Maerkle
  You're both the needle and the fabric?

• Kimsooja
  I am both the needle and the bottari. There are all these folding and unfolding processes going on in my art and mind and body, but also through my gaze and the relationship between my body and the people and the world, there is this other dimension of a needle that is weaving together different societies, geographies and cultures. I feel that my body becomes an axis of time and space. However, the first version of A Needle Woman was filmed in real time, and shows more of the axis of space than of time. The second version was filmed in slow motion, so it emphasizes the comparison in time. The people moving in slow motion appear to engage more sensitively and personally with my body, but at the same time my body, as a zero point of time, becomes an extended zero. What is that time? That is my question.

• Andrew Maerkle
  It's like you are constructing a series of mirrors.

• Kimsooja
  I have worked with mirrors on several projects since 1999, but it was while I was preparing my solo show in 2008 at Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo, "A Mirror Woman: The Sun & The Moon," that I realized the mirror is also an unfolded needle. My work dealing with nature unfolds as an extended fabric, while the needle is an extended tool of the human body that signifies the nature of humanity. Everything to do with the relationship between the needle/body, fabric/mirror evolves from my earlier pieces. In fact, the motivation behind my earlier work with sewing came from an awareness of the mirrorical aspect in painting. As a painter, I had always questioned problems regarding the surface of the canvas. I think the painter's life is all about wandering onto the canvas searching for different methodologies of producing one's own mirror. The notion of the mirror and one's identity has always been there, transformed through different media and methodologies.

• Andrew Maerkle
  One of the major issues that we will continue to face in the future, and which we've already been dealing with for past centuries, is how to deal with the other. Maybe your way of dealing with this issue is to put yourself in the place of the other, rather than that of the self?

• Kimsooja
  That's very true. It's an interesting perception. The artist's main subject somehow is based on the self and the other. The confrontation with the canvas is always about how to deal with the other and how to project oneself. But I want to expand that issue to communication with the other, and embracing the other, and, finally, reaching a ground of oneness. This is an issue that ultimately everyone has to face.

• Andrew Maerkle
  Now you are working on a new project called Thread Routes (2010- ). In conclusion, can you explain about how this project relates to your earlier work?

• Kimsooja
  Compared to A Needle Woman, the Thread Routes project is all about searching for the questions and roots of threads in an anthropological approach. It focuses on weaving, lace making, knitting and spinning - all actions with threads - in relation to the geographical, agricultural and architectural structures in various regions around the world. One inspiration for this project came from a visit to Bruges, where I saw a lace-making woman in the street, and immediately connected the structural and performative element of this action with local architectural practices. I began filming in Peru as the first chapter to this project. There, I juxtaposed different weaving communities' performances with the local landscapes, as well as architecture and archaeological structures. It was my first time shooting with 16mm film and I discovered a more special relationship with the camera than when I use digital film.

• "Thread Routes" is a retrospective project in that I am looking back at my earlier sewing practices up till now, searching for the structural, cultural and psychological roots of my own interest. I will continue to film in Bruges, Burano, Croatia, Prague and Alhambra. I also can't help thinking of countries in the Middle East that have strong decorative architectural elements. Other locations include Mali and Rajasthan in India, where there are clay houses decorated with circular mirrors, which also recalls the Indian tradition of fabrics decorated with mirrors. I also plan to film the weaving culture of the Miao people in Sichuan, who have a unique garment tradition of pleated skirts that to me seems to be strongly related to their agricultural cultivation using mountainside terraces and the layers of traditional architecture that are built along the local landscape. Then there are also traditional Japanese stone gardens - the structure of which I can easily relate to weaving. Native American archeological sites are another planned location.

• I'm also working on a site-specific commission by GSA that will take place right on the US-Mexico border in Arizona. I am making a video piece using a LED screen right on top of the first gate for entering the US, addressing the political problems and violence that occur with immigration and drug trafficking issues in the Mariposa Land Port of Entry. Again, this is a very delicate and vulnerable location with which to deal.

• In 1999, in Tokyo's bustling Shibuya neighborhood, Kimsooja produced the first in a series of performance videos collectively titled A Needle Woman (1999-2001). Standing still in the middle of the oncoming crowds, the artist achieved a minimal but not insignificant intervention into the rhythm of local daily life. Simultaneously confrontational and vulnerable, her action opened a window onto the collective humanity of the passersby - viewed from the advantage of hindsight, it is perhaps they who were the vulnerable ones that day. The first version of A Needle Woman eventually led Kimsooja to make similar performances in seven other international metropolises, while in 2005 she revisited the piece by traveling to an additional six zones of conflict and social tension, among them Jerusalem, N'Djamena and Patan.

• A Needle Woman is part of a larger body of work investigating themes ranging from memory and form to nature and consciousness. Often invoking images related to fabric - namely, the Korean bottari cloth bundle, but also threads and needles - such works ask viewers to reconsider their bodily relations to social structures, and reflect about what it means to be both an individual and a member of a community. Realized and exhibited in cities across the world, they offer a universal perspective, but also reflect the unique conditions of specific times and places.

• ART iT met with Kimsooja in Tokyo to discuss her practice to date and how she relates to issues of globalism, locality and site-specificity.

• Andrew Maerkle
  You've done projects in cities around the world, ranging from Lagos and Delhi to New York, Paris and Tokyo. Given that experience, what does locality mean to you, and has its significance for you changed over time?

• Kimsooja
  First of all, I must say that I was never interested in globalism and that was not my starting point for traveling around the world doing site-specific performances and video pieces. I was mostly interested in locality. In the mid-1990s my Cities on the Move-2727km Bottari Truck (1997) performance video piece coincided with the emergence of global issues in the international art scene, and my work received exposure in the context of globalism from curators who were trying to understand the phenomenon as it relates to contemporary art. However, as an artist, I was only focused on each city and its own locality. I valued the beauty of the pure authenticity and reality of each city.
  I have witnessed the development and transformation of many metropolises over the years. When I visited Lagos in 2000, the city had very tough living conditions, yet maintained authentic cultural realities. Now I hear the rough areas have been smoothed out and completely developed. For example, there was the Oshodi open-air marketplace that had been established along active railway tracks, which stretched for miles almost to the horizon. When a train arrived, people selling goods on the railway tracks would immediately clear out and then return once the train had passed. The marketplace was constantly moving and taking on different forms and dynamics. If it rained, the sellers would still stand there with their goods, even when the water reached their knees. It was the most amazing marketplace I had ever seen, and I’ve always wanted to return there to work again, but I hear now the market no longer exists as before. I understand that for the local economy it might be more productive to be modernized, but in terms of the authenticity of the local way of living and culture, I think it's a shame. With globalization, everything has become so standardized.

• Andrew Maerkle
  What was the impetus for you wanting to make the video pieces in different cities?

• Kimsooja
  The motivation began with the A Needle Woman performance I did in Tokyo in 1999 for a commission by CCA Kitakyushu. I was thinking of doing a walking performance piece, but didn't have a definite idea, so I walked around the city waiting to find the right moment and energy in the right place. After walking for several hours I arrived at Shibuya. When I saw the hundreds and thousands of people coming and going, I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't walk any further and had to stop there immediately, hearing my own silent inner scream right at that moment. Once I stopped, I also realized the meaning of walking.
  I asked the videographer to film me from behind. At the beginning of the performance it was very difficult to stand in the middle of a crowded street with all the people's energy coming toward me. I was determined to stand still; at the same time, I was in a vulnerable situation. I was totally exposed, but as time passed, I found my own center. I became very focused and entered a meditative state. As I stood there, I felt myself begin to mentally embrace and wrap the people who were passing me. I entered a state of mind of total concentration and peace, which allowed me to experience a certain kind of enlightenment. When I looked at the horizon of the waves of oncoming people, I could see a bright light coming from beyond them, and I found myself looking at the entire humanity of the world.
  From this special experience, I determined to continue making A Needle Woman performances around the world in order to meet, possibly, every single person in the world. That was the starting point. For the first version of A Needle Woman (1999-2001), I was interested in major metropolises where I could meet many people on the street. In addition to Tokyo, I made performances in Shanghai, New Delhi, Mexico City, Lagos, Cairo, London and New York.

• Andrew Maerkle
  You've spoken about the needle as a hermaphroditic tool that is both aggressive and passive. To stand in the middle of the crowd is both a vulnerable and a confrontational action, all the more so in a city where you're not a local. Is the confrontation an important part of the work?

• Kimsooja
  Every performance is a confrontation, both with one's self and the other. In this performance, the confrontation moved from the people on the street to myself and then slowly extended to the whole world, until ultimately I achieved a level of compassion whereby self and other became one. During the performances, these transformations were happening in my mind rather than in my body.
  Of course, there were many different physical reactions from the different cities. Tokyo was the most critical experience I had - people in Tokyo were aware of others next to them, but they pretended not to see them. When you see the video from Tokyo, my body is there, but it seems as if I myself am not there. I am totally ignored or isolated from the crowd, as they don't pay attention to me or acknowledge my presence. I'm an invisible person, yet this is one of the most crowded streets in the world. The time-based video makes apparent this phenomenon. It's as if I am a ghost, or my body becomes increasingly transparent. It's also interesting how my state of mind changed during the course of the performance, because the more I embraced the people into my mind, the more I was also liberated from them, and could empty myself. The visual and physical processed and the psychological, spiritual process were moving in opposite directions.
  Your comment on confrontation interests me not only in regard to my performance pieces but also in regard to earlier sewing pieces and installations. These were also very much related to a confrontation with "the other," through the medium of the canvas.

• Andrew Maerkle
  How did the experience change from city to city? Did you see different things about yourself in different cities?

• Kimsooja
  Yes. It depended on the location and the energy of the place. In New Delhi, people found an Asian woman standing in the middle of the street to be very odd and mysterious, perhaps because of their associations with religious imagery in Indian culture. They would stop and look at me for a few minutes, trying to find out who I was and what I was doing. Some people would ask the camera crew whether I was a Buddha or a sculpture.
  During the performances, I never engaged anybody in a direct gaze. I would focus on a single, vanishing point. This helped to keep myself stable, although I knew what was happening and how people looked at me. In New Delhi, the inner gazes shared between my mind and their minds were very intense. In Shanghai, people were only half-interested and would quickly return to their own business after glancing at me. In Cairo, people were playful and curious. Some people would stand in front of me, mirroring my position for a few minutes. There was also a man who brought a bottle of cologne and sprayed it in front of me to get my attention, and a woman who grabbed my ponytail and move it around my body. The reactions tended to be direct and very provocative.
  In New York, people were always interested in looking all around, searching for new information on the street, so their heads were constantly moving - eating, walking, talking, laughing, sometimes mimicking me. In London, where there is a similar multinational population, they were more turned in on themselves, and their gazes tended to be directed downwards at a 45-degree angle, rather than looking up. So these performances gave me insight into the mentality of the people in each city and different cultures in various geographies.

• Andrew Maerkle
  Have you ever done A Needle Woman or a similar kind of performance in Korea?

• Kimsooja
  No. I didn't want to position myself in the same place where I’ve lived for over 40 years. I wanted to have a degree of separation from and objectivity to the cities where I performed. Had I done it in Korea, everything would have been too familiar, with less tension. It would have been difficult to create a distinction between my body and the others - even if there were a visible distinction - because mentally and historically we share so much together. This was a piece that had to be examined outside of my own context.

• Andrew Maerkle
  But you have done other projects and of course exhibitions in Korea, such as the Earth - Water - Fire - Air (2010) installation of videos along the breakwater of the Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant. What is your relationship - through your creative process - with Korea?

• Kimsooja
  Passions and troubles can feed creativity. All my problems are good resources. My private life, my family, my friends, my country - cultural, political and social relationships can all be material for me to work with. The more I know my own culture, the more I actually feel estranged from it because I know where it comes from and yet I know that I'm not fully part of it. It was interesting for me to have grown up in a society that was undergoing economic and political turbulence. But then I thought that living in the same homeland for about 40 years is more than enough to learn what you can from one place. I thought that if I continued to live there I would just repeat myself, and I needed another vital ground. Another factor in leaving Korea was that even until the late 1990s it was difficult for female artists to receive recognition or support in the male-dominated social hierarchy.

• Andrew Maerkle
  Did this idea that you were moving away from your homeland at all affect the dynamic of doing projects in other cities and countries? For example, what keeps your practice from acting out a kind of artistic globalization?

• Kimsooja
  I think of globalization as being related to things like the profusion of a few brands across the world, or a process in which everything becomes standardized and preexisting cultures or ways of thinking and living are slowly eradicated. My intention with A Needle Woman was more about inner experience rather than expressing myself or showing off. For me, the performance inevitably became a kind of ontological question about living in the world, and the world in which I am living became my canvas - a backdrop, rather than a market. I’ve always been interested in experiencing the wakefulness of being in the world, rather than necessarily transforming my experience for the audience. Simply, the latter came naturally as a result of my being an artist.
  If there is a certain global aspect in my work, it's perhaps more in that I present the performances together in multi-channel video installations so that viewers can simultaneously see the different momentums of each city around the world. But I don't know if I recreate the standardized format of globalization. I am the same person and I am doing the same performance, but my inner transformation has always been there. Is it possible for me to become a global item? I don't know. It could be interesting if that were so. Obviously, in the current era artists can take on brand-name value. I never thought of that in my own practice because for me it's not about the product or a work of art but the artist as a being. Art is a methodology of living for me.

• Andrew Maerkle
  Maybe it's no coincidence, though, that in the age of globalization we have seen a rise in site-specific commissions asking artists to fly some place, do research and produce a project in that context. Sometimes this approach can produce powerful works, but it can also become an empty gesture towards an idealized notion of locality.

• Kimsooja
  Yes, it is true, and depending on the practices such commissions can take shape in different ways. Performance can be very different from installation, sculpture or even painting, which normally has less site-specificity in terms of interaction and can travel anywhere. A space-oriented site-specificity will be different from a time-oriented specificity, and a politically-oriented specificity will also be different from the other two. It varies so much with each project that it's very difficult to generalize.